Are You Radical?

Radical hope, faith, love, joy.  When I first heard about the campaign and we talked about getting back to the roots of Christianity, I though that the items in the list of "radical elements" were things that I had licked.  This campaign was going to be for someone else and I was going to coast through this six weeks. 

Famous last words (well, famous last thoughts). 

This six weeks has proved to be grueling for me.  The struggles that I have faced as I let my spiritual guard down have been overwhelming at times.  The battle has raged during fall campaign for us as individuals and as a congregation.  Satan has been playing hardball and he's hit us low and dirty.  Personally, I have been angry, confused, frustrated, lost, doubting, and a list of other emotions that are all negative.  I have hardly felt joy or hope or love.  I have felt much more like I was manifesting acts of the flesh (anger, rage, hate, discord, selfish ambition) rather than the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:19-26). 

As we draw to a close of this campaign I am grateful for God's goodness and His never failing love.  I am so thankful that even as I have not proven myself a mighty warrior during this time that He has and is lovingly showing me where my weaknesses are, where I must rely more on Him, and how to be better prepared for the next battle I face. 

You see, His mercies are new every morning.  His faithfulness is great.  As Jeremiah said, "The Lord is my inheritance; therefore,  I will hope in Him!" (Lamentations 3:22-24)  Because of God's goodness, I can say with confidence,  "I am radical".  I hope you are, too. 

Serving the Right Purpose

I can't pass up household disasters, no matter how small or great, when they have the potential to be great blog material.  To my unnamed son: thanks for the idea!  


Tupperware is a great product.  I love it! I will admit that I have other brands of the same type of product but I <3 Tupperware.  This stuff comes in all sizes, shapes, and functional uses.  You can always tell the era of Tupperware by the color; it's lasts forever so I have some 20+ year old country blue lids and I think my mama still has some that reflect the 70s in the yellows and browns and oranges that were popular then. 

Tupperware is awesome!  However, there are some things you just can't do with it, like put it in the toaster oven.  No matter how much I love Tupperware or how durable it is to be used for endless reheating of leftovers in the microwave, it's just not meant for certain things.  This picture, for your viewing pleasure, indicates just that. 

We're like Tupperware.  We are made to serve a purpose and to honor God with our lives.  When we do what we were created to do, we stay in tact.  Like a plate in the microwave, we may go round in crazy circles or get a little hotter than we like, but we're okay because we're doing what we are supposed to do.  At the correct time the plate comes out of the microwave and food is heated to "just right".  In serving our purpose we have been used to make something else better and to help it have it's own purpose through our discomfort and efforts. God uses all things to our good, remember? (Romans 8:28)

When we get outside of our purpose, however, say not living our lives to honor God, that's when things get messy.  The heat becomes too much, the activities too overwhelming, the crowd that we're with too influential.  This is when we start to run and melt, just like my poor plate.  And the thing  (food) that we were supposed to be helping along is also ruined because it gets caught in our mess (note the fate of the unfortunate waffles in the picture above - they're stuck in Tuppergunk)

Today as you make choices about how to live your life, remember my poor plate.  Hopefully it will help you to remember that when we live outside of our purpose that lots of people, including us, end up getting caught in our own mess.