Should I stay or should I go now?

As we continue to plan and prepare for this new adventure in our lives, I cannot help but to ponder on the reasons for giving up a nice home, a wonderful neighborhood, a great church, a fun job, proximity to good friends, everything! It is truly a lot to simply say, "I'm done with this, its time to move on to something different." That's huge. Why would anyone do such a thing?

We've been asking people to give up all of this and move with us to Charlottesville Virginia to start a new phase of life that has a lot of uncertainty to it. Who's crazy idea is this? Why would anybody want to do that?

But we've actually made that decision ourselves and many others have made that decision about other churches/missions/calls in this world. Why would we do that? We've been so successful here. If you told our story on TV, a lot of people would probably agree that we appear to be living pretty successful lives.

This is exactly the crux of the issue. How do we define success? What is the bar by which we measure ourselves? Better yet, what is the bar by which the only opinion we want to care about actually measures us? If we are concerned about what the average person thinks, then we truly would be crazy to leave all we have and pursue God and His church. If we care about our relationship with God, then we'd be crazy to live by the standard of the general public, the crowd. Granted, all of us buy into both, to some extent. The question is, how much more do we believe that God is good and He is worth living and dying for over and against the belief that being successful in the eyes of the world is valuable and worth while?

As I sit back and consider both of these options, it seems almost rediculous to me to even consider pursuing a life that pleases the masses. The first comparison that comes to mind is an option between the promise of a clay brick coated in 14k gold versus the promise of a warehouse full of pure gold bars. If this were a real option, you would have to consider the person who chose the brick to be about as sharp as a marble. Meanwhile, the person who chose the warehouse full of pure gold would make a perfectly sane and reasonable decision.

In this life, it is so easy to choose the lesser option. We've been fooled into thinking that the clay brick is really better than the warehouse of gold. If only we could wipe the scum off of our eyes. If only we could see, just for a moment, the truth of the option that lays before us.

The great thing about God is that we don't have to wait for the warehouse! Its there for us anytime we decide we want it. And we don't have to feel guilty about wanting a warehouse full of gold.

CS Lewis once said this about seeking the warehouse...

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of the holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
CS Lewis - The Weight of Glory

So, go for it...choose the gold...choose infinite joy...choose freedom from guilt and shame...choose Jesus.

Enough said for now.

I'd like to follow this up with a blog about how Christians, those who have already chosen the warehouse, often forget what they are about and start looking for those silly little bricks again.