a lot of times, I feel extremely overwhelmed by God’s “expectations” for me.
as long as I have been in Bible class, I have always felt the palpable pressure to share the good news to all your friends. in my mind, I have always pictured sitting down at lunch to the “bad” kids at school and telling them that they were wrong and Jesus was the answer. or getting up in front of my family and telling them the whole story of Jesus and salvation. silly? maybe, but I know I’m not alone in that thought. honestly, those two scenarios make me a little sick to my stomach; an introvert’s worst nightmare. one thing my youth minister tells us all the time is to get out of our comfort zone to spread God’s word. while the idea of his is completely true, I think Christians can automatically assume that means to boldly proclaim the Gospel by telling people you barely know how Jesus is so awesome and everything. but if that was truly the case, then why did God give each person different spiritual gifts? how come he gave me the gift of compassion and you the gift of prophecy? because he wants us all to spread His kingdom in all different ways.
in ephesians 4, paul reveals that Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers different gifts in order to reach “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” in 1 corinthians 12, you can find a big, long list of SOME of the spiritual gifts Christ gives His followers. even the apostles, Jesus’s own best friends, didn’t all have the gung-ho attitudes of Peter or Paul. not all of them fought for the mic, ready and eager to proclaim Christ by preaching to hundreds of people at a time.
for the longest time, I thought God expected me to use my spiritual gifts AND to tell everyone I knew about the glory of God within the first week of my baptism. SO TO ALL THOSE CHRISTIANS WHO DON’T FEEL “ADEQUATE” BECAUSE THEY DON’T SHOUT ABOUT GOD ALL THE DAY LONG, YOU ARE ENOUGH. God gave us the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, and prayer in order to spread His kingdom to the fullest. think about that. you can even use your intellect to spread God’s kingdom. without people serving the needy, without people praying for the brokenness, without people loving on the unloveable, Christianity is simply not complete. we as Christians are called to love and spread the precious word of God using our own spiritual gifts.
ALL the apostles turned the world upside down in Acts. not just Peter, ALL of them.
so you, turn the world upside down in your own way. give out meals to the homeless. pray for your enemies.take your friend to church. encourage someone going through a hard time. write a note to someone just because. do something to make people look at your life and question why you are so different. have people look at your life and want whatever you have.
the bottom line is, go out and live a questionable life.
livingquestionably 
Good to see you in the blogosphere! It fits. And I love the idea of “living questionably.”
It is interesting to me that what people who are not yet committed to Jesus most often say about Christians is that they want to see an attractive difference in our lifestyles, not just hear a sermon from us. There is certainly a place for words – they are necessary – that is the only way to know the difference between what motivates and empowers the life of Billy Graham versus Mahatma Gandhi. But it starts with a pure, authentic, different way of life. And that is witness too. And it is probably the kind of witness that is needed most right now in a country filled with “cultural Christians,” not committed ones.
I love your thoughts in the last paragraph. Notice what you didn’t say: going to church. Church is great, and it helps our Christian walk in many ways, but just getting involved in religious activity is not witness, at least not very much so. We have to find ways to let the Jesus in us come in contact with our friends in the world for our actions to be considered witness.
Good stuff! Thanks for the encouragement today!
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