It was a peaceful sunrise. The sun illuminated the sky with colors of bright pinks, blended oranges, deep purples, and soft blues. I heard the morning birds singing and the wind brush against the trees. In that moment I wondered what it would be like to spend my life pursuing more moments like these. I wondered what life would look like if I lived a safe, uninterrupted, comfortable, and relaxed lifestyle.
There was something about the quiet and the calm that awakened a longing for a comfortable life. A longing that would contradict every spiritual desire I had deep within my heart.
You see, over a decade ago I presented God a very risky request. I prayed for a life that would put me in the middle of chaos. Did I know what exactly I was requesting? Of course not; I was young. But I did know that I had witnessed too many people claiming to be Christians who never left their homes. Why would they? They tithed, went to church, said hi to a few people, and met all the standard “requirements” of Christianity. Their homes, on the other hand, offered some of the most beautiful landscapes, elaborate technology systems, and perhaps the most important, quiet and uninterrupted evenings. They lived comfortably while their next door neighbors were barely eating two meals a day.
Now, I understand this is not the case for everyone, but for a young girl who was trying to understand the role of Christians in a lost and dying world, these experiences turned my heart bitter towards the pursuit of comfortable living and led me to ask for the only thing I could comprehend at a young age–I wanted to live differently.
If that meant I was always relocating and replanting, so be it. If that meant I would never live in a big home or quiet neighborhood or have uninterrupted evenings or quiet dinners or a beach retirement, oh well. I knew if I were going to be in the middle of chaos, I’d have to sacrifice the pursuit of comfortable living.
What I wasn’t prepared for was just how middle I was going to find myself in chaotic situations in the years to follow.
You see, living in the middle of chaos doesn’t mean living under the bondage of overwhelming stress, without any stability, and with no sense of peace. On the contrary, living in the middle of chaos means sacrificing every desire to pursue a comfortable life in order to live freely in the unpredictable and thrilling will of God. It means bringing the saving grace of Jesus to people who have never heard the Gospel and spending time and energy to build relationships with people who constantly reject our moral ways of living. It means spontaneously having lunch with a homeless man, or committing to hosting a foster child, or randomly inviting your partying neighbors into your home for dinner. It means giving up sleep three times a week to stay awake until midnight in order to pick up a high-school student from work, because he has been paying his mom’s mortgage for the fifth month in a row and cannot afford a car. Sadly, opportunities like these are endless, but we as Christians have grown comfortable, rather accustomed to, ignoring them.
Ever since my risky, spur of the moment prayer request, I have continued to pray for the Lord to place me in situations that would impact the most people, regardless if it were uncomfortable or inconvenient. He has been abundantly faithful to answer my requests, and some of my favorite testimonies and powerful moments have been the result of His faithfulness. However, as someone who has been in the thick of some very intense chaos, not every situation we are called to will be glamorous. Sometimes we may be called to pray with people who have suffered from traumatic child-abuse, or extend hope to someone whose family has rejected him or her. Or we may find ourselves walking with someone through cancer or rehab, or holding the hand of a mother who just lost her child. Sometimes being in the middle of chaos leaves us curled on the floor praying for our Savior to do miracles in the lives of the people we have encountered and come to love.
As I have reflected on how I poured my heart out in my prayer journal years ago, I am overwhelmed with the freedom in Jesus I have experienced since. You see, Jesus also lives in the middle of chaos. And when I partner with Him in the work He is already doing, there is no other place I’d rather be. Our Jesus came to seek and save the lost and bring peace to our chaos, and last time I checked, it’s almost impossible to seek and save the lost from our sofas.