Radical

The book Radical by David Platt has been on my list of books to read for months.  I came back from Ethiopia in January so conflicted that I felt I could not read anything that would further contribute to what I was already processing.  I just finished  Led By Faith by Immaculee Ilibagiza.  She is a survivor of the genocide in Rwanda and her story is amazing.  I read her first book, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, last year and I highly recommend them both.  After reading about her incredible faith in God and story after story of His faithfulness to her through horrifying circumstances, I finally found myself in a place to read Platt's book.

I am not very far into the book and have already been challenged.  On page 7, Platt talks about his early days at his church and says, "I could not help but think that somewhere along the way we had missed what is radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable.  We were settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves."  Ouch!  And yet so true!  I totally like to be comfortable.  Physical, emotional, spiritual - I like my comfort.  The fact that I know God is calling me out of my comfort zone is a bit frightening to me because I don't know yet what that looks like.

I find the way He works to be so amazing.  If ever I questioned His omniscience, I don't anymore because I see how He has worked in my life.  He doesn't ask more of me than I am able to give and He beckons me gently so that eventually I land where He wanted me all along.  Two years ago, when we began the adoption process, the plan was that John and possibly his mom or sister would bring our daughter home.  I simply could not fly to Africa.  No way.  No how.  Little by little, I began to feel that I really needed to go - for the sake of our daughter.  I had finally wrapped my brain around flying to Africa once when the news came that Ethiopia was now a two trip country.  What?!  Lord - how can that be?!  Not only was it so much more money, but it required more of me than I thought I could give.  Well, not only did God provide every penny we needed for that extra trip, but He also used the combination of the two trips to completely wreck me and forever change my heart.

I love how He works in irony, too.  Last week, we were in Chicago and decided to walk from our hotel to Navy Pier.  According to the concierge, it was a mere 8 blocks away.  Well, it was easily twice that distance and by the time we arrived, we were sweaty and tired.  I told John there was no way I was walking back - it was too hot.  We hopped in a cab and discovered that the driver was from Somalia.  As I considered the drought and subsequent famine that is going on right now in the Horn of Africa and that people from Somalia are walking for days (and many dying along the way) hoping to reach a food distribution station, I was ashamed that I COULDN'T WALK A STINKING MILE IN THE HEAT.  I have so much to learn.