Weird: Because normal isn't working.

Weird.
Since I can remember I have loved to embrace being weird in everyday life.  I love being so strange and goofy that someone looks at me confused and says.."you're weird.."Only recently have I realized that I want to be weird, but for a different reason than being just goofy or strange. I want to be weird and different for God.  I'm so sick of how a normal life is and how normal people are supposed to live.

I started to feel this way after I read a book by Craig Groeschel called "Weird". In the book he covers 5 ways in which you can be weird in your life and start living how Jesus calls us to live. In Time, Money, Relationships, Sex and Values.  God didn't create us to live a "normal life" where we care about money and possessions and being happy with our sin.  He created us to live for him and to stand out from the world.

The world will eventually end and at the end of it all your fancy car or your good paying job wont matter and you will be face to face with your creator.  Think about it this way.  Everybody dies eventually. It might not happen for years, it could happen tomorrow. I could even drop dead before I finish this sentence...





Looks like God still wants me on this Earth.


So why do we sit in church during the worship service and stare around the room while trying to avoid singing because about what someone next to us might think? I've slowly began to see that when I worship, I want to sing and dance and praise God like a crazy person! Who cares what anyone else thinks! When we worship God like a crazy person we stand out!! and if we do it everyone else is going to see and not be afraid to give Jesus their best! It doesn't matter if you don't have a "good" singing voice or if your dance moves are cheesy or not, Jesus loves it!!!

God has been continuously teaching me more and more each day what it means to be Weird and to live differently. If we are different, people in everyday life will start to notice.  One day at work a coworker of mine said to me, "Spencer you are always so happy, even when you are working you keep an optimistic attitude". Now I wish I could tell you that I told them that the reason I am so happy all the time is because Jesus saved my soul and took the life I used to live and nailed it on the Cross and changed me forever! But that's not the truth...Instead I said something very normal and boring like "oh you know...blah blah blah..no big deal" I was given an opportunity to share the Gospel with someone and tell them that Jesus changed my life forever and could change theirs as well, but I missed it because I was stuck in the normal way of living.  I pray everyday now that God would give me opportunities to be weird for him in everyday life and that I wouldn't miss the opportunity.  Some days I feel so filled with the Holy Spirit and with Gods love that I just feel like shouting it and singing and praising all day!  I think too often people look at Christianity as a set of rules you have to follow that are in place to make you miserable.  But I see that being a Christian is about a relationship with God our creator who loves us more than we could possibly imagine! If you are reading this and you haven't given your life to Jesus I strongly urge you to give it a shot with an open heart because he is waiting and so badly wants for you to know him.

If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, spend some time in prayer. For so long I lived a life where I called myself a Christian but couldn't have been farther from it because I had no interest in reading the Bible or praying or trying to change how I lived.  I felt like I knew the stories and had said the magic prayer that was a "Get into heaven free" card and that I was in the good books for eternity.  Today I feel like no matter how much I read or how much I pray or how much I change how I live, I always have something God is teaching me and trying to help me grow in.  No matter how much I grow in my faith I always see room for improvement and places where I see remnants of my past life.  I would say that in the past while I have been starting to actually "get the whole living differently thing" but it's only the beginning.  Jesus has soooo much more to teach me and there is nothing more in this world I want than to live my life for God and be a man after God's own heart.

I know there is so much more that I could write about being Weird and different in this life but that might just have to wait for another blog. Until then I urge you to read "Weird" by Craig Groeschel, it will change how you look at your life and change what your priorities are.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, I know it was a little long. It's just something God has put on my heart that I really want to share.

Thanks!!
Spencer