“Will You Take Less For This?”

On Saturday I participated in our community yard sale.  For 2 weeks I went through closets, drawers and storage bins pulling out all the stuff that at some point I really didn’t think I could live without and just HAD to have.  It was going to revolutionize, glamorize or symbolize my life.  Now I was willing to take 50 cents for it just to get it gone.

I wasn’t forced to buy any of that stuff (I resisted using the word crap). I chose to buy those things because I thought each thing would some how improve or enhance my life in some way.  Saturday that $30 improvement went for $4.

So as I was packing the left over stuff, I started thinking, “Did God choose me OR did I choose God?”  (This is not meant to be a discussion on predestination or free-will!)  I CHOSE to buy that slightly too tall lamp with a shade that acts as a magnet to every piece of fur, dust or lint within a 20 mile radius.  But that’s just a lamp.  What about the God of the Universe?

This I know for an absolute fact:  God loves me.  Period.  He sent His Son to die for me!   And as a result, He commands me to love Him.  It’s not a choice, it’s a command.

Not a choice.

A command.

“Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’”

Matt 22:37

A command.

My choice came in choosing Him.  He is the one thing that improves and enhances my life.

Completely.

Yet, I confess, there are times when that choice is tough.  When I’m willing to take less. When the command to love Him feels like a burden.  Yes, I just wrote that.  It’s in those terrible, dark times when I’m placing more value on WHAT He gives me, not WHO He gave me.

My God, who loves me so stinkin’ much that He allowed His Son to die on a cross for me, deserves so much more than my lousy choices and crappy (there I said it) attitudes.  He deserves so much more than my willingness to take less.  He gave me the GREATEST gift of all.  Am I seriously crazy enough to choose less than that?

I do not want to live without God.  I can’t, actually.  I choose God.  And that choice demands that I love God.  And I choose to love Him regardless of whether or not He give me what I want. Because He gave me Who I need.

Where My Tent Is Pitched Now

Think about the one person on this earth that you love more than ANYONE else.  It could be a parent, a spouse, a child - anyone who you cherish above all else.  Now, imagine that person being nailed to a cross, dying for people who, quite honestly, don't deserve it.



That probably doesn't even begin to touch the surface of how God felt.

That was the question presented to me today in the portion of Crazy Love that I'm camped on right now. Being an "orphan" of sorts (both my parents are deceased) and not being married and not having kids, I honestly had to think for a moment just who that person is that I love the most.  And once I locked in to who, those thoughts, those feelings, well they just weren't all the pleasant.

But yet, God loved me, ME, enough to allow His Son to go through that. 

Me.

Prideful.

Selfish.

Arrogant.

Me.

That is how much, how intense, how MIND BLOWING, how crazy His love is for me.

And yet, I know I take that love for granted.  I know that I walk around not even trying to be thankful for what He's done and I know that I just assume that no matter what I do, He will continue to love me with that same intensity.

And you know what?  He does.  CRAZY!!  Flat out, knock your socks off crazy.

Now that I am aware of all of that what should my response be?  Should I continue in the same lifestyle, the same sinful ways with the same responses and assumptions.  No.  Absolutely not.

If God is going to love me so much to do the one thing that to us humans is totally and completely unimaginable, how can I deny Him my life, totally and completely and utterly sold out for Him?  How can I not, in whatever small and insignificant way not try to live a life, radical, crazy and wholly devoted to Him?

How can you?

(All of these musings were taken from the video, Just Stop & Think on the Crazy Love website.  It's about 15 minutes long, but if you can't read the book, watch the video.  It'll radically change you because it has me.)