“Jesus told them, ‘you’re all going to feel that your world is falling apart and that it’s my fault.’” (Mark 14:27 MSG)

Ever feel that way?  Like the closer you get to God, the more chaos it brings? Not exactly a great church-marketing strategy.  But the reality is our western, capitalistic church mindset wrongly equates God’s peace with ease, and His blessing with comfort, wealth, and the fulfillment of our personal, self-promoting dreams and desires.

The closer Jesus got to fulfilling his ultimate purpose, the less circumstances made sense to those around Him. And we see this reality unfold with uncomfortable clarity through Jesus’ disciples.

These men invested three years following this fascinating, controversial figure.  He added purpose to their normal, everyday lives, set them up with a new life trajectory, with meaning.  And then just as it seemed all their visions and desires were about to be fulfilled, He’s arrested, tried, and crucified. He died.

Chaos. And it almost seemed as if that’s what He wanted, like He willfully allowed it to happen (um, because He did).

Jesus rocks our worldview. He shakes our assumptions and perspectives to the core.  We like power, control, comfort, predictability. Yet we find following Jesus (really following Him, not just making Him part of your culture or weekly schedule or to-do list check-off) requires us to give all that away.  He replaces it with indescribable peace, joy, and purpose, but the cost is everything.  Everything.

And most days I’m just not willing to pay it. Just being honest.

Have I just brought Jesus into the dialog to make my love of self more palatable, justifiable, culturally acceptable, easier to swallow? Or am I really willing to give up control, power, perspectives, my way of seeing the world?

Following Jesus is the most peacefully destabilizing decision you will ever make. He will undoubtedly make you feel like your world is falling apart, and that it’s all His fault.  And although something in you is begging to run away, to keep control, to stay in power, there’s another part of you that longs for the adventure, that wants desperately to surrender to His game plan, that knows stepping into the uncontrollable chaos is actually the way to real life.

I like my house, not gonna lie.  Nearly nine years ago, my wife and I (less two of our three little rug rats) moved into the home we were going to spend the rest of our lives in.  Suburbs, picket fence, 3 kids and a dog.  You know, what everyone wants.  What everyone dreams of.  Until you get a glimpse of God’s dream.

When we decided last fall to begin the process of planting City Community Church in downtown Indianapolis, we had absolutely no desire to leave our home.  After all, we can be in the heart of downtown Indy in minutes.  Why move?  It wasn’t necessary.  We know the west side.  We grew up here.  Our families are here.  Everything that makes life “normal” and “predictable” is in our back pocket,  and we sure had plenty of of other things destabilizing our quaint, little reality.  We didn’t need to move, too.  The LaGranges are crazy enough (love you guys), let them do it.  We’ll hold the fort down from out here.

That’s usually when God starts to mess with you.  Not because He doesn’t want you to be happy, but He definitely knows control is not something you’re qualified to possess.  He’s not satisfied with one act of radical obedience, He wants a lifetime commitment to it.  We love control, and even though we never really have it, we desperately hang onto the appearance of it.  It’s like a security blanket that provides us nothing of real value, but for some reason makes us feel better.

So my wife and I slowly and subtly realized that even though we professed “God, we’ll follow you anywhere,” we had set our feet in concrete and chained ourselves to our current reality like some crazy, Oregonian anti-logging fanatics (if you’re from Oregon my apologies, but you get the picture right?).  We said all the right things, but in our minds there were just too many hurdles to jump to actually make something happen.

So we’re changing that.  We’re letting go.  We’re positioning ourselves to lose control.  Honestly, I have no idea what God is going to ask of us.  Maybe he’ll let us stay right here (honestly, that’s probably the answer we’re hoping for).  All I know is that we have to remove all the barriers that keep Him from owning the decision.  We have to stop treating God as if we control Him (an admission we would never openly make but far too often live out).  We’re untying the knots, releasing the locks, chiseling our feet from the concrete.  And then we’ll just see what happens.

What a way to live.

One of the great things about planting a new church is all the new people I get to meet.  A few weeks ago I got the chance to sit down with Geoff Wybrow and Jim Falk of LAM Ministries in Broad Ripple.  Geoff threw out a challenging analogy as we launch into these new church building waters:

God is calling you straight from “high school basketball” to the pros.  When you were in high school, you could get away with some handicaps…not dribbling well to your left, poor mechanics in your jump shot, being a little slow on defense.  But in the pros, those things will kill you.  You’ve got to fix them, spend some time on them, or you’ll never make it at this new level.

Same for all of us.  As God calls us higher, those little things we could easily compensate for as an “ameteur” become magnified issues we must confront and deal with.  Little insecurities, unbridled frustrations, masked selfishness, unchecked temptations.  No more letting those things go.  Time to cut them out.  Learn to play like a pro.

God’s call for all of us is radical discipleship.  That requires change…growth.  So what handicap have you been making excuses for?  Time to sharpen up.  The Pro is calling.