Rediscovering: Am I going loco?

Today’s reading – the 1st book of the New Testament Matthew.  It has a list of the ancestors of Jesus.  If you ever read or looked at the bible – it is actually a rather short list.  It can be really tedious to read a genealogy report, don’t you think?  I wish I had some big thought on this part…but I don’t have one for ya. Sorry!

Yet, my thoughts today as I started to read the questions YouVersion had for me were actually comforting.  The questions center around asking me what I thought Joseph must have been thinking and feeling as the expectation of generations was all the sudden falling on him.

Just take a few minutes and think about how ridiculous the story of Jesus truly is: God sends His ONLY son to become like one of us…a man.  So he comes down to Earth not with a hole lot of pomp and circumstance, but thru a very young girl who is a virgin.  She doesn’t even get the pleasure of being with a man before she has the horror of having to give birth with all the aftermath!  (Sorry, just being honest here as I think about this loco story…)  She doesn’t understand why she has been chosen to have this “honor” – which I am sure many times it might not have felt like an honor.  She has to tell her pretty-much-husband that she hasn’t been sleeping around on him, but that she is pregnant.  Not only that, but that she is pregnant thru the Holy Spirit.  Come on!  Who is going to believe her?  Yet, it doesn’t stop there.  Joseph, who must have been thinking she was really off her rocker…yet had enough heart to not publicly humiliate her or to have her stoned to death worst case scenario…then has a dream that somehow confirms what she has told him?  I don’t know about you – but my dreams are usually REALLY odd and way out there…that must have been some dream!  Then, to chance the retribution of all his family, friends and neighbors – he does as he is told to do.  Wasn’t he concerned about the backlash?  The outcries from his friends that he must not do this?  Where was his accountability group?

We have all – or I guess I am assuming we have all heard this story a billion times or there about without really stopping to think about it, right?  It doesn’t say that he questioned God once the angel visited him…but that he just did it.  Just like Abraham when he heard God ask him to go “sacrifice” his son Isaac.

I wish I could say I was this obedient when I get the call from God to do something that is a little out there…a little ridiculous and incredulous.  But I confess I am not.  It doesn’t mean I don’t end up doing the thing I am called to do….but I am much more like Moses throwing all the questions my mind can muster right back up to God.

“What are you thinking God?  Are you SERIOUS!?  Don’t you know what that would make me look like?  Uh, huh..that’s right.  I am going to look like I am off my rocker…a little out there…like maybe I am smokin’ something.  No way, you are going to have to really prove that it is You…that You REALLY REALLY want me to do this thing.  You are going to have to give me a sign of some kind if this is really you.  For while I don’t want to ‘stand in line’…I am not so sure I really want to stick out like a lunatic either!”

Around and around I will go with God.  I try to think thru my options, and conjure up ideas as to why He is asking me to do this…why does this need to be done, for whom…for what purpose.  His voice patiently keeps asking, giving me no answers to the whys usually…just asking me to trust Him potentially without ever knowing why I am doing it.  I have to admit that as we discuss this, my voice will be raising in frustration as I try to get out of it.  Or I try to negotiate and see if there is a more subtle way I could do what He is asking.  Sometimes I do get this….at least I like to think I do.

In the end, however, as I have been rediscovering Jesus these last few months and looking at his life…I realized that even at some points – probably at many – he was looked at as if he was off his rocker.  I mean – look at the start of his life here on earth.  How much more loco can one’s birth be?  Even his own family tried to come and get him out of a house where he was ministering cause they thought he had lost it.  
So is this how you know you are following God?  If what you hear being asked of you is truly from God and it makes you look loco – then it must be truly from God?  Looking back at scripture in its entirety it would sure seem this is the case.  I won’t sum it up here…but God’s people have done some pretty loco looking stuff!
One thing I took away from a message earlier this summer – appropriately entitled “Signs from God“- that has helped me with my “appearance of looking loco” is this: That if you are moved towards a peaceful place in your spirit about the aforementioned task, it is most likely the Spirit asking you to do the aforementioned task.  So, while Joseph and Mary must have felt a little loco – I am comforted to know that I am not the only one to appear loco for following the voice of God!

I will leave you with one last thought which is this: As I have learned that God certainly does ask things of me that are out there…it has once again taught me to be more open to what He might be asking others to do for Him as well.  To be open the possibilities and not judgmental…and this allows me to realize that just like I have no idea what God is thinking – I also cannot pretend to know what others are thinking either.  The best I can do is try to listen and give them a safe place to be who they are…trusting that God is at work in them just as He is in me.

So….. put on your boots, buckle up your seatbelt and get ready for an out-of-this world ride if you decide you are going to follow God…for you might be joining me and Joseph and Abraham and Moses and Mary as you do some pretty wild things!
I have NO idea what this guy is doing…but it sure makes me laugh!