God wants to mess up my happy little life...

“I know there are people out there who say, “My life was such a mess. I was drinking, partying, sleeping around…and then I met Jesus and my whole life came together.” God bless those people. But me, I had it together. I used to be cool. And then I met Jesus and he wrecked my life.

The more I read the Gospel, the more it messed me up, turning everything I believed in, valued, and hoped for upside down. I am still recovering from my conversion…I was in the in-crowd, popular, ready to make lots of money and buy lots of stuff, on the upward track of success…But as I pursued that dream of upward mobility preparing for college, things just didn’t fit together.

As I read Scriptures about how the last shall be first, I started wondering why I was working so hard to be first…I had no idea what I should do. I thought about leaving everything to follow Jesus, like the Apostles, and hitting the road with nothing but my sandals and a staff, but I wasn’t sure where to pick up a staff.” Shane Claiborne

Acts 10:34-43
"It's God's own truth, nothing could be plainer: God plays no favorites! It makes no difference who you are or where you're from—if you want God and are ready to do as he says, the door is open. The Message he sent to the children of Israel—that through Jesus Christ everything is being put together again—well, he's doing it everywhere, among everyone.

"You know the story of what happened in Judea. It began in Galilee after John preached a total life-change. Then Jesus arrived from Nazareth, anointed by God with the Holy Spirit, ready for action. He went through the country helping people and healing everyone who was beaten down by the Devil. He was able to do all this because God was with him.

"And we saw it, saw it all, everything he did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem where they killed him, hung him from a cross. But in three days God had him up, alive, and out where he could be seen. Not everyone saw him—he wasn't put on public display. Witnesses had been carefully handpicked by God beforehand—us! We were the ones, there to eat and drink with him after he came back from the dead. He commissioned us to announce this in public, to bear solemn witness that he is in fact the One whom God destined as Judge of the living and dead. But we're not alone in this. Our witness that he is the means to forgiveness of sins is backed up by the witness of all the prophets."