Way beyond Normal

It's early... very early. 3am always seems to hit when you least expect it to. Sleep is like a freeway of time, I get on when I go to bed, and then I take the exit ramp in the morning and resume time in the normal way. Sometimes though I end up taking a wrong turn and wander around the suburbs of "normal time" by being awake at 3am. The rest of the world freeways through time in their sleep and here I am trying to find my way back.

As I was trying to find my way back to sleep I was catching up on some of the internet I have missed due to working. John Acuff over at the blog Stuff Christians Like posted a brief little snippet from his father's blog about faith.

His father said, "I don't want a life that requires much faith." (See blog(s) for context)

The general gist of the idea is that the natural state of people is to want security, and when you are secure in something it doesn't require you to have faith in God.

I've been kind of thinking around this idea myself ever since I've had cancer. I sometimes wonder if life would be so much easier without God. If I could simply live in one place, raise a family quietly, you know the "American Dream" thing. But then I get to thinking about it, do I really want to live like everyone else? Do I want to "live quietly"? Do I want to accept "normal"?

At the tough times yes. I do look yernfully at the supposed "peace" that other people have in normalcy. But you know what? That is one of the great things about faith. God is going to use me, put me in places I don't want to be. Grow me, stretch me, push me to do things I would never "normally" do. And He's going to give me His peace while I am there.

It's going to seem like craziness to the world when you are doing something that requires you leave "normal" behind and do what God has asked you to do, but that is where faith comes in. While I might at times want a life that doesn't require faith, I also don't want a life without God. God will take you and I much further in life than we ever even dreamed was possible, and that takes faith. And that creates an amazing story that God will use.

"...so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
-Ephesians 3:17-21 (ESV)

~B.