Help My Unbelief

Some thoughts- 🙂

I just finished reading “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” by John Mark Comer, and, wow…

I can confidently say I’ve never read a book that has brought so much light and clarity to how we should be living as followers of Jesus. This is the kind of message I never want to become a fleeting fixation, but I want the takeaway to be something that permanently and radically altars the way I live every day for the rest of my life. 

I could talk for hours about what I have learned throughout reading this book, but I really want to focus on the overarching theme of radical faith. I feel like using “radical” to describe something can often invoke a negative connotation, however, it really just means boldly stepping out of the societal norms and taking a stance for something outside of the world’s fundamental way of life. 

It really got me thinking- at what point did we decide that the full and complete surrender was too much of a sacrifice (or too radical you could say…) in today’s culture? If you look back to the early church in Acts, the people were living life in unity with one another- sacrificing their fleshly desires for a closer relationship with each other and with their Father. Even by studying the way Jesus lived, it is so evident that we have neglected so many spiritual disciplines because they don’t fit with our ever-changing and hurry-filled schedules. As followers of Jesus, we are meant to learn from Him, and this includes adopting His everyday practices in our own lives so we can grow in likeness to Him. The problem is, we have let ourselves believe the lie that the life we read about in the Bible is unattainable or crazy to even consider in our fast-paced and consumeristic reality. But that is just not the case. I mean, it isn’t necessarily feasible for everyone to meet at the church at the same time 3 times a day, but we can still take measures to live a life more centered around Jesus even if it may involve some sacrifice. 

Practically, this can look like a lot of things. For example, I recently decided to start practicing the Sabbath. The more I learned about it, the more I wondered why we ever threw it out in the first place! Practicing the Sabbath these past couple of weeks has been more fulfilling and life-giving than I could’ve ever imagined. This is the way God designed us! He Himself took a day to rest! The world is so full of hurry that we lose sight of how important time alone with our Father is. Taking a whole day to just joyfully experience the wondrous works of the Creator of the universe who also calls us loved and worthy is literally indescribable. It becomes what I look to each week, and what gives me the strength to get through the hard moments of the week. 

Anyways, I could clearly go on for ages, and maybe I’ll put together a longer and more in-depth reflection at some point, but for now I really just want to challenge everyone to join me in altering the way we live to be more reflective of Jesus. It may seem radical, intense, or overwhelming, but I can confidently say it will be oh so worth it.