You did it. You made it! Hooray for you!! And me! And all of us!

This chapter made me want to sing. And dance. And go back to Cambodia STAT. And I have waaaaay too much to say about this Radical Experiment, so I’m going to stretch it out over the next few days. But let’s cover the basics right now. You ready??

The chapter, if you haven’t read it, is titled “One Year to a Life Turned Upside Down.” Platt leads us readers through five components of what he calls the Radical Experiment, five things we’re going to commit to doing for one whole year.

I don’t know about you, but I’M IN.

1. Pray for the Entire World

I’ve heard the verse about praying God would send workers into his harvest field a hundred times, but I never thought about it like this. “When Jesus looked at the harassed and helpless multitudes,” Platt says, “apparently his concern was not that the lost would not come to the Father. Instead his concern was that his followers would not go to the lost.” (p. 187) Ouch. Why have a billion people still not heard the gospel?

Because we’re not praying.

Five minutes ago, I bought the book Operation World that Platt references on page 189. I’ll be honest. I was a little ticked when I first read about it. I was all excited when he said you could get all the info for free online only to find out that you can’t anymore. The author’s no dummy. If David Platt mentioned my book in his NY Times Bestseller, I’d probably go write a new book and charge $16.49 for it on Amazon too. (Boo.)

But I really, really want to pray for the world, so I sucked it up and bought a copy. I’ll let you know what I think of it.

EDIT: Thank you, Natalie, for pointing out that you CAN access the prayer info online for FREE. It’s all new from when I last checked and looks GREAT. Just click here. Woohoo!!

2. Read Through the Entire Word

I got off to a slow start, but I’ve been reading through the Bible this year. I started in Genesis, and a few books in, I decided to read the New Testament simultaneously, so now I’m in Jeremiah and Ephesians. I’ve read the Bible through several times, but this is a new version for me (ESV). I definitely want to do this every year.

There were some powerful words in this section of the chapter. Like, God has chosen by his matchless grace to give us revelation of himself in his Word. It is the only Book that he has promised to bless by his Spirit to transform you and me into the image of Jesus Christ. It is the only book that he has promised to use to bring our hearts, our minds, and our lives in alignment with him… When you or I open the Bible, we are beholding the very words of God–words that have supernatural power to redeem, renew, refresh, and restore our lives to what he created them to be (192).

3. Sacrifice Your Money for a Specific Purpose

This is one that’s going to take more space. So tomorrow I’ll tell you about my birthday money and our halfway-replenished Cambodia Fund.

4. Spend Your Time in Another Context

Yep, you guessed it. Thursday’s post. Two things I’ll touch on now. 1–the story of the dear lady in his church who asked why he didn’t just send the Sudanese $3000 instead of spending the money to go to them. And then Andrew’s statement that “a true brother comes to be with you in your time of need. Thank you for coming to be with us.”

I have some videos to share (that I forgot all about!) that will hopefully express how much it meant to those sweet Cambodian kiddos that we actually came all that way just to be with them. I’m having an especially hard time this week missing them like crazy.

And 2–that I don’t have to choose between Cambodia or Columbus. It’s “not either-or, but both-and!” (p.201)

“I am convinced that when we open up our lives to the global purpose of God, he will show us things we have never seen and take us places we have never been before” (p. 203). Amen and amen!

5. Commit Your Life to a Multiplying Community

Friday’s post! I’ll share more about the amazing group of people that make up our new church.

And I’ll wrap things up with a kickin’ quote:

Consider what you might feel after a year of being intimately exposed to the heart of God for every nation in the world. Contemplate what you might know about the glory of God after a year of listening closely to his voice. Think of all the possessions you have now that you would realize you do not need, and think of all the dire needs that would be met as a result of your sacrifice of them. Wonder about where God might lead you–near or far, to a reached people or maybe to an unreached people who have never heard the gospel until they meet you. Reflect on the community of faith that would surround you as you find yourself in relationships that are the primary avenue through which your life will impact the world. (213)

It’s been an awesome ride, friends, and hopefully this is just the beginning. I’ll save the sentimental stuff for two Tuesdays from now–November 30–our Radical Celebration (with prizes)!

YOUR TURN:

1. Which of the 5 components are you most jazzed about?

2. Which one do you think will be the most challenging?

3. Any plans for the coming year you’d like to share? ARE YOU IN??

Can you believe we’re on the next-to-last chapter?? We can do this!!

Okay, I’ll admit all the risking and dying stuff was a bit intimidating, but didn’t you find it invigorating too?? I mean, talk about upping the ante, jacking everything up a couple (hundred) notches. Wowza.

Are you at the place where you’d be okey-dokey-fine with getting accidentally stuck with an HIV-infected needle in the name of serving Jesus? What about getting speared to death by natives that you were trying to win to Christ? Or being eaten–how does that sound? Or poisoned–by your own family?

Goodness, we’re barely willing to risk being thought of as a little “out there” by our neighbor.

I like the tongue-in-cheek (but not really) warning on page 167–”To everyone wanting a safe, untroubled, comfortable life free from danger, stay away from Jesus.”

David Platt goes on to say, “Maybe this is why we sit back and settle for a casual relationship with Christ and routine religion in the church. It is safe there, and the world likes us there. The world likes us when we are pursuing everything they are pursuing.”

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

I don’t want to spend my life cruising on a luxury liner (p. 169-171). I want my life to be characterized by a sense of urgency, of not resting until the poor have food and orphans have homes and justice is restored and the lost are reconciled to Christ.

And I don’t want to just throw my money at causes–although that can be really awesome and is so important–I want to be out on the front lines. In the danger zone. Not waltzing around like some benefactress elf, passing out charity like candy canes at Christmas time. I want to get OUT THERE. IN THERE. With the poor and the orphaned and the marginalized.

God will protect me. He’ll protect my family. Because even though following Jesus might very well mean putting yourself in harm’s way, “we can rest confident in the fact that nothing will happen to us in this world apart from the gracious will of a sovereign God. Nothing.” (172)

I wrote the words “Panha’s dad” on page 173 when Platt is talking about how Satan’s plan to destroy the church through Stephen’s stoning actually helped scatter believers to all corners of the earth where they shared the gospel. Stolen tuk-tuk, anyone?

I love this paragraph on page 174–Indeed, God knows every detail of our lives, and when we step out in faith to follow him, he will show us that our greatest security is not found in the comforts we can manufacture in this world but in the faithful provision of the only one who knows our needs and the only one who is able to meet our needs in every way.

I wrote “Cambodia Fund” right under those words. I’ve told God I’d give up that dream if he asked me to (oh, I pray that I really would), but I don’t sense him saying “give it up.” I sense him saying, “Trust me.” My girls just stared at our brochures of our orphanage kiddos tonight and chattered about them and talked about which girls are closest in age to them and tried their best to say all their names without looking. Then Nina started crying. “What’s wrong, sweetie?” I asked her. “I just want to go to Cambodia,” she said.

Well. We’ll just keep praying about it then, won’t we? And she has been. A lot. And I got to give her some good news–an answer to her prayers–this afternoon. I have an opportunity to earn a little money here in awhile. It won’t buy 5 plane tickets, but it will buy 3 girlies a passport. And we’ll just keep trusting and keep trucking and see what God has up his sleeve.

And that was a tangent I didn’t mean to go off on, but I can’t apologize for Cambodian tangents, because I like them.

I have a story to share tomorrow. It doesn’t involve going to an unreached people group in a foreign land, but it does involve people I haven’t reached, because I’ve been too… something… for the past four years to walk around my neighborhood and reach out to the people I share a street with.

Lord willing, that’s going to change here soon.

Reminder: Chapter 9 on November 16, Thanksgiving week–OFF, Radical Celebration on November 30.

Two questions for you today:

1. What’s your biggest fear?

2. What are you ready to risk?

Happy Election Day! And that’s pretty much all I have to say about that. If you want to read something really cool, check out this post by my friend Megan.

And if you want to know how I feel about politics at the moment, let’s just say I totally agree with Meg’s bold assertion that I’ve come to a place of feeling like, for me, discussing politics is, at best, a waste of time, and at worst, it’s a significant distraction from my real purpose here: going, telling, making disciples, all that Great Commission stuff.

Speaking of that Great Commission stuff, what’d you think of Chapter 7??

I’ve had several encounters lately with people who just couldn’t wrap their minds around a loving God sending people to hell. I get that, and I’ve been thinking on it quite a bit lately. And other alternatives start to sound pretty good until…

If people will go to heaven precisely because they never had the opportunity to hear about Jesus, then the worst thing we could do for their eternal state would be to go to them and tell them about Jesus. That would only increase their chances of going to hell! (p. 148)

And this: If we conclude that people can get to heaven apart from faith in Christ, then this would mean there is something else they can do to get to heaven… tantamount to saying to Jesus, “Thanks for what you did on the cross, but we could have gotten to God another way.” (p. 154)

No, hell doesn’t seem fair. But a lot of things God does don’t seem fair. And his unfairness goes both ways–the judgment way and the mercy and grace way. Anyway.

I love the visual of God sending servants –> servants preaching –> people hearing –> hearers believing –> believers calling on the name of the Lord –> everyone who calls getting saved.

And that the only part that could screw the whole thing up is the part about the servants (me and you) not preaching the gospel.

And maybe you’re like me, where you think (or used to think) that “preaching the gospel” is something that only super-smart, super-spiritual, missionary-ish people can do. But do you know what it really is? It’s getting to know someone who doesn’t know Christ, maybe someone who needs some physical needs met or just some love and attention. It’s giving of your heart and time and life and laughter and friendship and maybe even clothes and food to that person. Little by little, step by step.

And it’s praying God will give you an opportunity to tell that person about your relationship with Christ. And he will.

So, that “takes care” of the people in our own neighborhoods. But what about the people around the world who have never even heard of Jesus? What about the Bedouins? Back on August 6, I wrote a whole post about this quote (maybe you’re standing in line to vote and have all kinds of time to read the entire thing on your nifty little phone):

“Will we sit back and wait for some tingly feeling to go down our spines before we rise up and do what we have already been commanded to do? Will we risk everything–our comfort, our possessions, our safety, our security, our very lives–to make the gospel known among unreached people? Such rising up and such risk taking are the unavoidable results of a life that is radically abandoned to Jesus.”

Rising up?? Risking everything?? Gulp.

What in the world are we supposed to do with this chapter, friends??

Hello, friends! I’ve missed you! (It’s okay if you didn’t miss me. I’ll never know.)

Just gonna get something off my chest right off the bat. Today was one big giant pity party. Thrown by me. In honor of me. And no one came but me.

Pa-thet-ic.

But thanks to my friend Sandi and my amazing husband and my forgiving, resilient children, I think I’ve packed up the party favors and am ready to move on.

Shall we?

Did Chapter 6 step on your toes? It didn’t step on mine. Because the giving and the letting go of stuff and the living with less? That’s not what I struggle with. God has (painstakingly) worked a lot of those kinks out already in my life.

But all I have to do is substitute the money/possessions thing with “time” or “reputation/popularity” or “career/success” or “doing things my way” or a host of other blahblah, and there’s my ouch.

Ouch.

I loved Chapter 6. I nodded and amen-ed and said “Yes!” and “I’m in!” and “Bring it!” But I find myself totally overwhelmed by the need and my lack of resources to make a dent in any of it.

I exchanged an e-mail with this sweet gal today (Read her blog! You won’t regret it!) I was sharing with her the beginnings of an idea I had–a way to bring some hope to the dear women she works with in Haiti. This is part of what she said in reply: It’s beyond hard in this country, but when God reminds me that He is busy advocating for Haiti, grabbing the hearts of strangers far away, it brings me such encouragement and peace. Your email today was one such reminder that God has not forgotten this place, these women, and Haiti’s children.

And I felt warm and fuzzy for a minute. And then overwhelmed all over again by the scope of the poverty in this world.

But I have a renewed sense of purpose right this very minute. I can’t do it all, but I can do something. I can pray. And I can spread the word about people in need. And I can encourage people to donate Expecting books. And I can sponsor a little girl in Mexico and hopefully one in Thailand. I can pray. I can sell things to help people who have nothing. I can team up with people at my new church to reach out to those who have been marginalized right here in our community. I can pray. I can save my book/speaking $ for a trip to Cambodia. I can hold that $ loosely in case God wants to use it for something else.

I can pray.

Once again, I could copy impactful quotes until I’m blue in the face, but you’ve (hopefully) read the chapter. You know what it says. I do love this one though:

“We are discovering the joy of a radical gospel inside us that produces radical fruit outside of us. And as we meet needs on earth, we are proclaiming a gospel that transforms lives for eternity. The point is not simply to meet a temporary need or change a startling statistic; the point is to exalt the glory of Christ as we express the gospel of Christ through the radical generosity of our lives” (135).

Meeting people’s physical needs and meeting their spiritual needs goes hand in hand. And I so desperately want my life to be characterized by radical generosity in every sense of the phrase.

And this quote moved me to tears the first time I read it: “We learned that orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they’re not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes” (139).

Yes it does.

Father, break my heart for what breaks yours. Empty me for your kingdom’s cause. Whatever the cost, I want to give my all for you. And for the least of these. Oh, God, don’t let us waste our lives.

1. What excited/scared/overwhelmed you about Chapter 6?

2. Did you take issue/feel bothered by/question the truth of anything he said?

3. Anything specific God has laid on your heart to do in the days/weeks ahead?

(looking for the Radical Read-Along? we’ll be back next Tuesday with posts on Chapter 6!)

I know you can’t really trust your “feelings.” But this past Saturday from 8 a.m. to noonish? All I could think was, “This is what I was born to do. I. Love. This. Every single bit of it.”

Let me back up.

Have I mentioned that Nina and I are Reading Buddies with a sweet little 3rd-grade girl named DaShawn (Da as in Day, not Da as in Duh)? The SOMA! (“Read” in KiSwahili) program is headed up by Pastor Rich, and a bunch of us take just one hour a week to read with a kiddo at an elementary school in an impoverished community.

Nina and I LOVE DaShawn. This year’s program just kicked off, so we’ve only met with her twice, but we’ve loved every minute. She’s sweet as can be and a little shy with a quiet, raspy voice and 37 braids in her hair. Our first week together, I was asking her questions about her family, trying to get to know her a little better. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

“Yes.”

“Older or younger?”

“Some older, some younger.”

“What are their names?”

She looked at me for a second, then held out one of her hands in front of her and kind of counted on her fingers as she said their names. I couldn’t really understand what she was saying, since she’s pretty quiet, but from what I could tell she had at least five siblings.

Wow.

When I found out that Heritage (the church that’s helping plant Sanctuary, our new church) was doing a Warm Clothing Drive at this elementary school this past Saturday, I was SO pumped. The girls asked me if I thought DaShawn would be there, but I said I didn’t know. (They’re a little jealous that Nina gets a Reading Buddy and they don’t.)

Lots and lots of things went wrong trying to get this Clothing Drive off the ground. For starters, there were supposed to be shifts of people from 3-5pm and 6-8pm on Friday hauling all the clothes from Heritage to the school to get everything set up and grouped according to size and gender for Saturday.

Except there was no school Friday, and someone forgot to let us in.

Plan B: get to the school at 8:00 a.m., 2 hours before the Drive was scheduled to start, so we could set up AQAP. Except that we all stood outside the school in a chilly huddle from 8-8:20 when we finally decided, “They’re not going to let us in.”

Plan C: do the Clothing Drive outside.

Man, you should have seen God pull this together. The A-Team’s got nothing on the fine folks of Columbus, Ohio. Livi, Ava, Nina and I took over the shoes and pulled hundreds of pairs out of boxes and garbage bags and lined them up, adults on the left, kids on the right.

There were at least 15 tables of clothes with tons of boxes underneath just waiting to replenish. Infant girls, infant boys, 2T-5T girls, 2T-5T boys, and all the way up to XXXL. Thankfully, some amazing folks at Heritage had already sorted clothes and boxed them up with labels, so we pretty much just unloaded them in the right spot.

There were some “rules” that we held to pretty loosely. One paper grocery sack per family member + 1 pair of shoes + 1 coat. We had a couple people on hand who are fluent in Spanish, so that was cool.

And as if we needed something else to go wrong, somehow there were no signs to place in front of the school. Signs that let people know we were there with free clothes. So Pastor Rich took a few boxes of clothes, a couple volunteers and headed up to the front (we were set up in the back by the parking lot) to get people’s attention as they drove by.

And he took the attention-getting to the extreme. Have you ever seen a grown man squeeze himself into a one-piece navy blue footy sleeper with rockets on it? In public?

Let’s just say we didn’t tell anyone he was the Pastor.

At one point, a woman and her young daughter walked up, looking a little hesitant. I felt completely and totally drawn to them. “Hi!” I said. “Thanks for coming. You can fill a bag for each member of your family, even if they’re not here.”

The mom smiled and said, “Well, I have 15 kids, but I’m not going to walk away with 15 bags of clothes.”

“Oh my!” That one caught me a little off guard. “You can though! We can help you! Hold on!”

I ran to grab Carinne, the gal in charge of the show. “This dear woman has 15 kids. Can we help her shop for them?”

At this, the school librarian who hung out with us for awhile said, “I can vouch for her. She really does have 15 kids.”

Carinne was all over it. “Give me a couple sizes to start looking for, and a few of us will split up and go shopping.”

Mom holds out the fingers of her left hand and starts naming off kiddos and their ages.

“Wait a second!” I interrupt her.

She looks up at me.

“Did you say DaShawn?”

“Yes.”

“Is she eight?”

“Yes.”

“She’s my reading buddy! DaShawn is my reading buddy! I LOVE DaShawn! I can’t believe you’re DaShawn’s mom! We want to shop for DaShawn!”

And so we did. The girls and I searched high and low for the sweetest, most beautiful size 8-10ish clothing we could find. Cute jeans and colorful, pretty tops. Darling pajamas and cool scarves and a pair of size 4 shoes (her mama knew her shoe size which I found incredible). We crammed as much clothing as we could into the bag without ripping it and then found a sharpie and wrote her a big note all over the front and back.

I could’ve cried.

I could cry right now.

God, please bless DaShawn and her sweet mama and all 14 of her brothers and sisters. And thank you SO much for giving my girls and me the gift of meeting DaShawn’s mama this weekend. Help us to be Jesus to that precious, precious family. And I don’t know why you keep taking my meager attempts to bless people and spinning them around and blessing me three times as much, but thank you. I love you. Amen.