People always ask: "Are you willing to risk it all? Are you willing to give it all up for the one you love?" As I try my best to figure out this whole following Jesus thing, the question is the same. "Are you willing to risk it all? Are you willing to give it all up to serve and follow me?" Am I really willing to lose it all to follow Jesus and to serve His people in whatever way He calls me to?
There is no doubt in my mind that I think way too much. I read too much into every little detail. I over analyze. But through it all, there is no doubt that I know myself... I know my heart... and I know my motives. While I'm a dreamer who far too often locks himself in his mind, playing through the "if onlys" of life... I am very real and away of where I'm at and how I'm feeling. I often find new revelations, seeing the intricacies of my heart. Today, another such revelation came.
Radical. A term that often is met with negative connotations. Yet, a term that can be redeemed. As we look at many of the social movements throughout history, those who carry them would be deemed "radical." Jesus was radical. He took the systems and shook them, flipping them on their head. And His call... is radical. "Drop everything, and follow me." Christ calls us to let go of it all, be willing to give it ALL up to follow Him.
Now I don't believe He calls us to follow Him into a strict religion, with tight laws and rules that chokes out our ability to love and freely follow as He calls us. I think He calls us to love Him unconditionally and love His people, ALL people, unconditionally. To be humbled, to learn, to realize we do not have it all together. He calls us to brokeness, and in our broken state to fight alongside the marginalized and oppressed. To fight for social justice. Not to do little service trips here and there, but to LIVE EVERYDAY fighting for the good of others rather than our own. After all, we are only human through each other. We are all linked. The only way to have peace, is to remember that we belong to one another.
I have long thought about this radical idea. Give it all up! I can do that. I don't need fortunes. I don't need cars, money, houses. I don't need a glorified job. I can live paycheck to paycheck. But this is not all He calls us to. He truly calls us to be willing to lose EVERYTHING. He tells us to let go of family, to put Him above friends, to take NO SECURITY in ANYTHING that is not Him. While I am often honest with myself... this one is hard for me.
Over the years... I have lost a lot. And the things I have lost have of course been the things I least would want to give up. It has not been money, it has not been my home. It has not been material things. Instead, I lost a best friend. Instead, I lost baseball, the thing I turned to in times of need when I needed to get away, the thing that stirred a deep passion and that was my path to so many other things. Instead, I lost the stability of my parents marriage. Instead, I have seen my closest group of friends slowly grow apart. Though we are still there and talk occasionally, we are not the support and strength for each other we once were. Instead, I lost my dog, the one I could always rely on to listen to and be around if I needed it.
Over the past few years, I have bounced from city to city, job to job, close community to close community. I have experienced loss, and seen the same in so many lives. While it has pushed me, made me grow, and helped me be the man I am today...it has left deep wounds and ugly scars lingering below the surface. For you see, now when people ask if I'm willing to lose it all... to TRULY LOSE IT ALL.... I don't know that I can say yes...
Deep in me there is a fear. I cannot let go... for I fear that if I let go... it will slip away never to come back. As I begin to care for people, I become attached. I begin to read too deeply into things, and for fear of losing someone I smother them. For fear of losing something, I cling to it. I pour and invest hoping somehow this will make it stick. In the end, i wonder if I drive things away. I try so hard to be constant, to be present in their lives... that it becomes to much. My focus moves from truly investing in and helping people... from fighting systems of injustice and being a (broken) pillar, there for people to come to. It shifts to clinginess, to holding too tightly for fear of losing... for fear of being alone... for fear of being replaced and having no worth or purpose. Unhealthy... my worth and security are too deeply rapped up in people...in a person I'm scared to lose. I'm not scared to fail... I suppose I'm scared to be irrelevant. Not to the world, but to the people around me who I care so deeply for. I'm truly scared to give it all up... to pursue the greater good, to pursue that which I am called to.
So the question lingers. Am I willing to give it all up? Am I willing to lose it ALL? Am I willing to let go of friends even if they move on without me? Am I willing to let go of my reputation? Am I willing to let go of everything that provides any kind of consistency... and drift, wander after this Jesus who simply says "follow me?" Am I willing to walk alone in the darkness because He calls me to? Am I truly willing to be radical.....?
Fear grips me tightly... but that's where I'm working to be.
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