Yesterday’s message at Church scraped the inside of my heart like nails on a chalkboard. It struck a nerve that has been irritated since. The message spoke to me from the regard of how “doing the required amount just isn’t enough.” It’s not enough to just get by but to push the envelope beyond the point of being completely used up for the cause of showing Jesus Christ. I saw a post on “Pinterest, don’t knock it until you try it but it literally felt like someone had punched me in the gut, it knocked the wind out of my sails and screamed in my face “I want more, it’s just not enough.” The quote said this:
Wow…..wow…to be used up so that not one single bit of talent is left is powerful. Even when we finish a jar of peanut butter it’s impossible to get every single slather of that delicious goodness out of the container but for Jesus that’s exactly what He is saying, “I don’t want you to stop at almost being empty; I want you to be used up, completely wiped out and empty for me!! I want you to step out of your comfort zone and bear the burdens of the broken that I have called you to bear, not for those that you feel comfortable going after. I want you to do more than the minimum, sacrificing yourself for me.”
I posted a video a few days ago on my fb and I knew when I posted it I would have mixed reactions, what I didn’t expect was no reaction. Not one single person commented on the video I posted about “abortion.” Why? Because it’s a controversial subject, because it’s something we don’t like to talk about. Or what about adultery,sexual scandals, addictions, crime? I feel like for the past year the Lord has been pushing this envelope for me, He has placed in me a deep passion for the broken, the hurting that I never expected. A place that I never would have picked I step into the muddy waters of but He has shown me pain in the lives of others through His eyes, not my own. He has showed me that when I want to be judgmental, when I want to wonder why someone ended up where they did, when I want to try to figure out what went wrong “how dare I!!!!”
All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." ~
Edmund Burke
I don’t promote abortion but I promote healing from the pain of something I could never imagine, I don’t promote alcohol but I promote recovery and freedom from the bondage it can have over people. I have witnessed in the lives of many and in my own life the healing, restorative, redemptive power of Jesus and the grace that has been offered to me is no different than the grace that needs offered to another hurting, broken, child of His.
I don’t want to be quiet, I don’t want to tip toe around the brokenness, and mistakes we face but I want to share a Jesus that is there regardless of them. I want to share a Jesus that when the world has given someone every reason to stop fighting and throw in the towel that they can hear from behind someone is cheering for them and holding up a sign rooting them on.
I imagine that’s what pushing the envelope is. For me I imagine this beautiful moment standing before an omnipotent, powerful, loving God and being so exhausted that I know there isn’t doubt, I know that my human being is completely famished because I worked to show people Jesus. I imagine a moment standing before Him that He didn’t call me by name because of how much money I had, what materialistic things I obtained, what friends I had, but instead because I am so withered up from giving it every ounce of my being I am completely famished. That’s when I believe we will hear “well done good and faithful servant well done.”
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