What is life as an ordinary radical?

I often start my blogs wondering where I am going with it, sometimes with an idea in mind, but often with nothing. I tag the title on later. I have trouble putting my thoughts and questions into blog. I posed a question in my last blog about what it looks like to live life in complete abandon in pursuit of God. I'm still on that question and pondering it even more so. I'm listening to an audio book of Shane Claiborne's "Irresistible Revolution" and am about half way through it, so make note if my ideas are different when I am finished with it. I have always kind of had this picture of my future as wanting to be good at something and "do good for God." That sounds rather dumb and childish written out, but that was about what I had come with up until the last couple of years. My heart is slowly changing in the area of what I want to "do" with my life. I have my major and my plans, but if there is one thing I've learned about a life in pursuit of God is that He tends to not follow my plans. Don't get me wrong, He exceeds them, but they are not according to my maps usually. I often wonder if God intends me to be a teacher or am I going to get this degree and then do something else with my life. My plan, for now, is to minor in Biology and major in Physical Education. It scares me and thrills me to think that God may completely shatter that and redirect my life completely. This book is one of those books that gets you really pumped up about wanting to live a life that is different and lives by God's word and not by the church's expectations, however when you get all pumped and feel like you could run a marathon in a very figurative way, you trip after the first step and think, "How is this applicable in my life?" You realize that yeah, these ideas are amazing and you want your life to look like that, but what the heck does that really look like for Taylor Putman who works at Double Dave's Pizza and attends San Antonio College. Now there is a curve ball. I think the most helpful thing Shane says in the book is that if people would stop complaining about the church and just be the church they want to see, then a change might happen. How often do I become cynical about problems I see instead of just living out what I feel we are called to live? The answer is all too often, I'm afraid.

A big topic of my lately has been the idea of love. I've been doing a bit more research on the way love is used and described in the Bible. One thing I have come to realize is that the way you've experienced love, whether it be from God or humans, really affects the way you love people. Someone posed the question to me saying, "isn't love just a feeling and you stop loving people when that feeling goes away?" and I really hurt to think people experience God that way, though I can relate. I'm also tying together the idea that the way you experience love and the way you love people ties directly into how well you live life in pursuit of God. My ideas on how God loves me slowly get shattered and replaced with a very passionate picture of God and his desire to have a relationship with me. That love is what drives me to show it to others. If my picture of God is where it was 4 years ago, I probably would not care very much to share it with others. At the end of the day, I'm very thankful for a God who pursues me and loves me in new ways everyday. I leave you with a song I've been playing a lot lately.