Thought I'd forgotten my book study? Just temporarily sidetracked by life. Chapter 7, "Your best life...later", reminded me a lot of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. In this chapter of Crazy Love, Chan reminds us to not be owned by fear, but to pursue God with abandon.
He makes the challenge to take scripture literally about caring for the poor and needy. Who do you know that takes Luke 12:33 literally? "Sell your possessions and give to the poor." Instead we continually seek more stuff. Including me. As far as Americans go, I am not such a stuff chaser. But when you compare me on a global scale, I am pretty sure that someday when I stand before Christ, He will have some suggestions about how I could have better used my material resources for kingdom purposes. Honestly, I rarely consider other options for how to use my resources. I just try to stay ahead of the bills.
Chan made an interesting point on p.120. What if that fateful day when Jesus sent the disciples hunting food for the crowd they had kept the loaves and fish for themselves. You probably could have fed 12 guys with that food. They could have split the loaves up and each had a few bites of fish. They would have been decently satisfied till they got home. But they never would have seen God's famous miracle and fed thousands of people. What if that is me? What if I perceive my resources as just enough for me and my family, but God wants to use them to do some pretty amazing stuff?
Scripture talks a lot about caring for the needy....am I so cynical that I have stopped trying? How can I be more obedient with my stuff?
Just some thoughts that I'm chasing around in my head.
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