GOING CRAZY

You are more than welcome to take this particular blog title exactly how you want to.  I’m pretty sure that however you take it, whatever you are thinking, you are right.  There is a point somewhere in every 24 hour period that I’m certain I’m on the crazy train.  Yesterday it happened when just about the time I realized I will be 50 (grandma age) in 30 days, Evan brought in a new prized frog that had a severe peeing problem, the dog threw up on the couch, I discovered with my nose that onions had rotted in the back of the pantry, I tried my hand at giving Parker a haircut (something I have never done before), welcomed my sister in law in the door to fix the mess I made of Parker’s hair, and hugged Jarrod as he told me that even though he was on day 10 of meds for his pneumonia, he felt horrible. That was yesterday.  Don’t even get me started on a couple of days ago when things took a sour turn (meaning that we asked for a few chores to get done) and we were

promptly informed that America is sucky, our house is sucky and Rod and I are sucky.  Neither Rod nor I knew that this particular Smith even knew that English

word, much less had the ability to use it properly in an ongoing sentence.  Unfortunately, in the events of the afternoon, it was several hours before Rod and I realized the English progression that had taken place. 

This morning, I started reading “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan again.  I first read it 4 years ago.  I sat on my bed with my coffee with my jaw dropped as I re-read some things I had read and underlined before.  Before….  Before Smiths went to Belize, Australia, Guatemala, Ukraine, Eleuthera Bahamas, and an unreached people group in the jungles of Nicaragua to share Jesus.  Before we really understood that a surrendered life meant surrendering our kids completely for such trips for His calling and His glory.  Before we came face to face with the reality that being parents was not about us.  Before we hit empty nest life.  Before we accepted that, for us, a chilled out and self-focused empty nest was not okay. Or obedient…. Here is a bit of what I read this morning:

**“To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid ‘big’ sins – is this passionate, wholehearted love for God?”**

**”…we have an inaccurate view of God.  We see Him as a benevolent Being who is satisfied when people manage to fit Him into their lives in some small way.”**

**”The point of your life is to point to Him.”**

**”People who are obsessed with Jesus give freely and openly, without censure.  Obsessed people love those who hate them and who can never love them back.”**

**” Lukewarm people are moved by stories about people who do radical things for Christ, yet they do not act.  They assume such action is for ‘extreme’ Christians, not average ones.  Lukewarm people call ‘radical’ what Jesus expected of all of His followers.”**

And how about this little ditty from Chris Tomlin in the forward of Crazy Love: “…but to sacrifice your own comfort and welfare for another may look like madness to a safe and undisturbed world.”

These things from a book called “Crazy Love”, which led me to remember a youth camp years ago that I chaperoned where the speaker was speaking from Hebrews 11:8-9 “BY FAITH Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, OBEYED AND WENT, EVEN THOUGH HE DID NOT KNOW WHERE HE WAS GOING.”  That was July 22, 2003 at Superwow.  I wrote in my Bible that night “Lord, give me a crazy kind of faith.”

So this morning I ponder (I love that word. Jarrod just glanced over my shoulder and said “Now THAT is a fun word we don’t use enough) what would a “crazy kind of love” and a “crazy kind of faith” all mixed up together look like?  If the Smiths got crazy obedient, would people think we were crazy? Would we care? And even more personal and in my face, will I keep on loving like crazy if I keep on being called a sucky Mom? That’s how Jesus loves me. Will we allow Him to carry us further still in this new season of loving and ministering to orphans? What if that means crazier days? What if almost everyone we know begins to ask “Are you crazy? Have you lost your minds?” Remember that crazy two months  (before we got restless) Rod and I spent in Empty Nest Land where we did absolutely nothing of any significance because we were busy doing nothing and talking about cruises and weeks on end at the beach and maybe even buying a jeep for 2 people to ride around in and look middle-age cool while at the beach??  FOR US, those were the two months people should have been saying to us “Are you crazy? Have you lost your minds? The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”

Signing off with a word from The Word that both challenges and scares me.  It excites me and makes me feel a bit tired. But it is awesome truth that I long for Rod and me to live by. Paul writes to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 5:13-17 “IF WE ARE OUT OF OUR MIND (!), it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, because WE ARE CONVINCED that One died for all, and therefore all died.  And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has GONE, the new has come!”  CRAZY!!!!