A friend just sent me a text encouraging me to be radical for Jesus today.I had three simultaneous thoughts.
What a great friend.
What a great text.
How do I be radical for Jesus if I’m going to be at home all day?
Really. I get how to if I’m, for instance, running an AIDS Team meeting, or preparing to fly off to a third world country, or speaking at a women’s event, or meeting with someone to talk through how we can allow Scripture to transform our lives. But how do I live radically for Jesus when I’m doing laundry and marinating salmon?
I can eat fewer cookies. Seriously.
I can watch less television.
I can go for a run or walk or do some kind of exercise that shows God I actually do appreciate this healthy body He’s given me.
I can pray a bit longer than usual…for my children, my husband, my friends, my world.
I can read something about HIV that will build up my knowledge and therefore my passion.
I can write something for my next book that will move it one day forward.
I can look again at those few verses that for some reason I couldn’t seem to memorize and take another crack at them.
I can do some investigating about my next trip or two.
I can speak the truth to myself. Days alone at home can be long and quiet…which I happen to treasure…but I tend to, sometimes perhaps, talk to myself a bit. And sometimes what I say is not only unkind (idiot, why did you spill that?) but untrue (she hasn’t responded because she doesn’t like you…). So I can start saying true things to myself when I’m alone and in the quiet.
I can choose to not waste my day, and therefore my life.
It’s all about redefining radical.Radical doesn’t have to mean being burned at the stake or standing on a street corner proclaiming the world’s end.It can mean looking at the life of Jesus and getting to know Him well enough as a person, and loving Him enough, to know what He would want me to be and do.
I better get busy.
