Beautiful is the Life. I named my blog this after seeing a shirt today that said "Life is Beautiful". That statement got me thinking. All too often we take life for granted, and we don't actually LIVE. Life is too precious to pass it by. It only comes once. And in a blink of an eye it is gone.
Who would be a better example of living an authentic life than Jesus? These past couple of days I have been reading in John. and WOW. For some reason, in my head, it did not click that Jesus was so serious about his call in life to save people. That sounds so bad for me to say. I mean come on he's JESUS. But when I compare that to my life, I'm not doing anything. I am just going through the motions and maybe, just maybe someone will see Jesus in me. Anyway, lets get back to the example of Jesus. His first miracle was turning water into wine.... Yes ladies and gentlemen I said Wine. I wonder why Jesus chose for his first miracle to be water to wine. I mean he could have made the water to juice and said no one else is getting drunk. Ha! Why did it have to be at a party? Mind you this was the first time EVER that his glory was shown. Even to the disciples. Hmm. I find it interesting that Jesus did not hang out with the ideal christians. Day after day, you see Jesus going out to speak. It's amazing to me how awesome his life was. Not that he had it all physically, but he knew what he had to do in his life. So he did it.
I am reading this book called The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. (Check it out sometime). In the book he talks about various places in his life and what he has done. What particularly stood out to me was that he went to the people who needed to hear God's word. Night after night, Claiborne would sleep on the streets of Philly. He would minister to people, not shoving it in their faces, and they would listen. God took care of Claiborne and his friends as they slept on the streets. Here's an excerpt from the book:
"Back at college, I had asked one of my Bible teachers if he still believed in miracles, like when Jesus fed thousands of people with a couple of fishes and handful of loaves. And I wondered if God was still into that stuff. I wanted miracles to be normal again. He told me that we have insulated ourselves from miracles. We no longer live with such reckless faith that we need them. There is rarely room for the transcendent in our lives. If we get sick, we go to a doctor. If we need food, we go to a store and buy it. We have eliminated the need for miracles. If we had enough faith to depend on God like the lilies and the sparrows do, we would see miracles. For is it not a miracle that the birds find enough worms each day? He was right. On the streets of Philly, we experiences miracles. We would wake up sometimes with a blanket on us or a meal beside us that wasn't there when we went to sleep."
Not only am I going to challenge myself, but I would like to challenge you too. Our lives are too beautiful to not have a purpose and to not be lived out to the fullest. What can we do in our lives to make it out of the norm, extraordinary, and radical? How can we change lives for Jesus? I think by living out our lives as Jesus did. Literally showing his glory, where it is least expected.
