Obedience

Let's be honest: Sometimes God asks us to do some messed up stuff.

Example: Abraham sacrificing Isaac. Yes, I know he didn't actually do it, and it changes from a story of filicide to a tale of Abraham's devotion to God regardless of the price, and I'm not discounting that.

What I'm saying is, Can you imagine what Abe went through? His son, the son God had promised him, and now he had to sacrifice the boy? What? The excuses: "Um, God, um...I think I didn't hear you correctly...you said sacrifice the goat, right? Because I know you  didn't say what I think you said..."

Nope. None of that. The Bible says Abraham had faith, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Hebrews 11 even tells us "Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again (Heb. 11.19 NLT)." Abraham had a serious amount of faith-imagine, leaving your country and your family, all because God told you to. Settling in a foreign land, battling armies, surviving-prospering-against the odds and finally, even though is should not have happened, having a child and through him, becoming the father of an entire nation.He followed the will of God in his life, even when it seemed completely ludicrous and wholly insane, and God honored him for that.

The real question is, what do you do what God hands you an Abraham-sized call. The kind of call that causes you to leave your home for a foreign land, or believe in things that have no hope of happening, just because you know that you know that you know that the Lord spoke to you. Do you have the faith to follow that call? Are you brave enough to go where the Lord leads you? Will you obey, even though the cost might be higher than you ever thought-more than just money or leaving family, what if the cost is giving up certain dreams that you've held onto with a death grip for years? What if the cost is leaving behind everything that is familiar and right (to your mind) for what can only be described as an uncertain future?

If this is how you chose to live your life, it's going to be hard. There are no two ways about it. John 16.33 tells us "...in this life you will have trouble." Following the Lord is never easy. People will come at you, the world will shun you, you will face hardships. But John 16.33 continues with "But take heart! I have overcome the world." Jesus is outside of the world; he is above it and around it, and if we want to know what will happen if we choose to obey, we need only to look at the example of Abraham. In the Bible, he goes from unknown dude from Ur of the Chaldeans to the father of the nation of Israel. He's a big deal-up there with Moses and Elijah. Now, I'm not saying God will give you your own people group-probably not. But it is made very clear in the Bible that God rewards those who are faithful and obedient to Him (Lk. 11.28). And, frankly, if God's calling you to do something, and you know it's from God, what could possible matter enough to stop you from doing it?

Just Jump

Recently, I was swimming in a river in Oaxaca. We were jumping off of this ledge, about fiver meters up, into this deep pool fed by a waterfall. The water was freezing, and we were all tired and dirty, but we just kept jumping and jumping off.

I jumped several times, but its the last time that catches in my memory. I got up to the top, got ready to jump, and stopped. All of the other times I had jumped, I had just launched myself, without thinking, with a whoop of extasy. But this time, I paused.

I stopped and thought about all of the things that could go wrong. All of the things that could happen. I could hit my head. I could break something. I could drown and die. All of these thoughts came to me, and I stood rooted to that spot, unable to move. Even though I wanted to jump, even though I had done this a bunch of times, I could not move. I would like to tell you that I eventually overcame my sudden fear, that I jumped in a blaze of glory and it was a transcendent moment in the history of Alisha, but what really happened is I gave up after several tries and climbed down off the ledge, wondering what exactly went wrong.

What occurred to me was, how many times in life do we not do the amazing because we get mired down in the details? Ignoring the fact that jumping off cliffs is mildly dangerous, I didn't do it because I got scared. I considered a bunch of details that I had previously ignored and fear kept me from moving again. And while its important to consider the wisdom of your actions and be safe, how many times do we not do things in the name of comfort? "This is scary; I don't want to do it." "I don't know how to do this" or just "I don't want to."

Maybe we need to start doing scary things so we can experience the amazing.

I hope you all enjoy the new format and the new domain-this should be my blog's permanent home from now on, and I'm hoping to be able to post a bit more.

Alisha