I wouldn't have it any other way.

There's one thing that God has been pounding into my heart the past few weeks... and that's to love Him with EVERYTHING! Wholeheartedly, fully, completely, with my whole life. I knew He was trying to get me to understand what that meant but I just wasn't really grasping the concept. It was being thrown at me in books, music, teachings... but still, I couldn't understand what it meant to live your life 100% for Jesus.

Today, I was reading a book called "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan about being overwhelmed by a relentless God who loves us SO much. In a chapter titled 'profile of the lukewarm' he explains how to not be a "lukewarm Christian" and how to do just what God has been trying to get me to do... love Him fully. It was starting to sink in finally and then I read something that really made it click. The author says that when he was in high school he seriously considered joining the Marines after seeing all of those "the few, the proud, the Marines" commercials. He goes on to say that what turned him off to this idea was that in those advertisements, everyone was always running and he hates to run. So obviously, his plan of possibly joining the Marines ended. He didn't bother to enlist, get to boot camp and ask if they could please alter the rules for him so he could do fewer push-ups and be allowed to run less than everyone else. He knew that it would have been stupid and pointless because when you join the Marines, you do what they say and if you don't like it then you shouldn't have joined in the first place because you obviously weren't ready to make that commitment. He explains that this concept should cross over into our thinking about Christian life. Jesus didn't say to us, "Become a Christian and I'll let you do whatever you'd like. I won't push you to do anything outside of your comfort zone. It'll be smooth sailing and you'll get awesome rewards just for saying you believe in me." NO! He said, "Take up your cross and follow me." We can't join the Marines, or make a whole-hearted decision to follow Jesus without having to do any work. Neither of those things are promised to be easy. I know a Marine who would call me at night, totally exhausted after a long day of seriously tough training. He'd say how much it sucked and would throw in a few choice words to describe the details of his day. But whenever I would ask him if he was happy about his decision to join the Marines, I ALWAYS got a response like this.. "Oh yeah, I love it! I wouldn't want to be doing anything else."

The same should be said about Christian living... "I love it! I wouldn't want to be doing anything else! No matter how hard it gets, no matter how discouraging it can be at times, no matter how tiring some days can be.. I wouldn't want to be living any other way!" I just love that! I love that Jesus didn't promise us butterflies and rainbows when we choose to believe and trust in him. That would be a pretty boring life, wouldn't it? Everything perfect all the time... no thanks. I like a little adventure. I enjoy disappointments because that forces me to seek out God even more. He wants us to experience His glory and awesome power. If our lives were perfect, how would we ever know the glory of God? So bring on the three mile runs and ten mile marches to test my endurance, bring on the sit-ups and pull-ups to test my strength, bring on the drill instructors yelling in my face telling me what I'm doing wrong... because I love this life and I wouldn't have it any other way!