It's totally insane. It's not normal....

I was lying on a mattress on the ground in Mark Coffey’s basement, looking at the wooden ceiling. I was thinking about God. As I lied there, not more than 6 inches off of the ground, I realized one amazing truth: A true, God fearing, God empowered, active Christian is insane.
I don’t mean insane in the sense of mentally disturbed, or not in good mental health. I mean insane in the sense that sometimes, a Christian makes no sense.

Does it make sense that a man was thrown into a lion’s den, yet came out completely fine? Does it make sense for a small boy to kill a man over nine feet tall? Does it makes sense for an entire sea to part to allow a whole group of people to go through it? Does it make sense for water to be turned into wine? No! None of this makes sense.

It makes no sense for a man, living in America, to forsake his worldly pleasures (that would include a television, a car, indoor plumbing, heat, air conditioning, a roof and almost anything else.) and go serve God in a small, remote, desert village filled with savages. It makes no sense for Keith Shumaker to say "Praise the Lord; I have Malaria again!" as he sits in a sweltering heat in the country of Burkino Faso.

I then began to think about myself and my own life. I realized that I wasn’t insane enough. I would be insane to think that the God who created the heaven and earth would care about a sinful, pitiful, disgusting creature like myself. I would be insane to say that He would take time out of His schedule to attend to my need. I daresay that I would be a madman if I expected God almighty to clean and bandage me when I fall and get hurt. But maybe most powerful to me, at least at that time, would be the fact that any “normal” man or woman would tell me that I was fooled and confused if I thought God would answer my prayers.

The Bible tells us that, assuming we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us as born again Christians, we have an audience with the Father. That’s when I realized that I was just as “normal” and boring as any other normal guy. I was afraid to ask God for mighty things. I was afraid to ask for the things that would make normal people say, “You think God is going to do THAT for you? Child, you are insane.”

I was only asking God to provide the minimum. I was asking for just a little. I wasn’t daring to take big steps because I was afraid. I was normal.

Then I realized something. God won’t do mighty works in my life if I’m normal. Nowhere in the Bible were normal men used to further the Kingdom of Christ. Sure, shepherds and carpenters fill the sweet pages of our Lord’s word, but they were far from normal men and women. These blessed people, my friends, were filled with the power of God. They were vastly different from any :normal" human being. They had big goals and dreams involving God. They weren’t afraid to look stupid or be laughed at.

I realized something that night, as I lie there on my back. I realized that if I want God to use me, I have to be insane, out of my skull, or just plain crazy. I have to ask for things that are just plain ludicrous. And I MUST die to my own pride, desires and flesh if I wish to see the Lord use me. I’m going to start asking things of God that a ”normal” person would call foolish or stupid. I’m going to start asking things that seem too farfetched to be true. I’m going to start trusting God to do what he said he could do, and that He will do it in an able and exceeding manner.