What is our approach to the Christian life to be? Is the "radical" and "crazy love" approach the call or is it the "long obedience in the same direction" call...Or are those two at odds at all? Think this is a good reflection by Chaplain Mike over at the InternetMonk blog...A small excerpt below:
"It seems to me that some preachers simply have no tolerance for ordinary, daily life with all its messiness and imperfection as a realm in which God is at work, and in which we participate through simply being who we are, trusting God, and loving our neighbors. No, the message is loud and clear: do more, give more, sacrifice more, serve more, be more obsessed, take more risks, go farther, reach higher, run faster, be more like this extraordinary person and not like your ordinary self.
[Francis] Chan’s vision [as an example] of the Christian life is more, more, more. In Crazy Love, he writes, 'If life is a river, then pursuing Christ requires swimming upstream. When we stop swimming, or actively following Him, we automatically begin to be swept downstream. Or, to use another metaphor more familiar to city people, we are on a never-ending downward escalator. In order to grow, we have to turn around and sprint up the escalator, putting up with perturbed looks from everyone else who is gradually moving downward.'
"I’m worn out just reading those words.
"When did “discipleship” come to mean a manic sprint up a down escalator? I thought it was “walking with Christ.”