When God Asks You to do Something That Seems Crazy

I’m picturing him bending over to come out of the crawlspace, suitcase in tow. And his wife is all,What in the world are you doing?

We’re moving, Abram says.

They move –the whole kit and caboodle. Just because God says. And it’s a little nuts.

So there I was…

A few Januaries ago when God first whispered women to my heart, and I was all, You’ve got to be kidding. Moses-esque.

Then a woman visited our evening church service for a few weeks. She stopped coming, and I can’t even remember her name. But one day she left a book on my husband’s desk at church, with a sticky note: A gift for your wife. I haven’t seen her since then.

Generous but weird, ya know?

But hey –a new book. So I started to read, and it was the testimonies of all the Calvary Chapel pastors’ wives and how they came to know Christ. At the end of the first story was a little biography about the pastor’s wife tucked at the end. It said, something like, “And now she ministers to women in her church.”

I read on. The next testimony ended with, “And now she ministers to women at her church.”

Lord, seriously.

I read on. The third testimony ended with, “And now she ministers to women at her church.”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Never, ever, ever do I skip ahead and read the end. That is BAD book reading manners (mom!) But I couldn’t help myself. I quickly flipped forward. Story after story ended with, “Ánd now she ministers to women at her church.”

This was just the beginning of God talkin’ to me, you guys. When God is speaking to you, it’s like you’re in a house of mirrors and you aren’t going to turn around without hearing the same message everywhere. For months I couldn’t open a book or talk to a friend or be online without hearing about the needs of women. After talking to the women’s ministry director at my church, she graciously has given me the green light to do some caring for women, as pastor’s wife at our Saturday night worship service.

So yesterday I went to the printer’s and paid a few dollars for invitation cards that I’m going to hand out at church Saturday night. They have this cheerful graphic on them:

At the printer’s they took my money like it was no big deal. Like people walk in every day and say, I’m here to pick up the flyers that seem ridiculous and put me at huge risk for humiliation, and what if I’m wrong and that wasn’t God talking all along but just my overactive imagination?

It’s a little women’s gathering, you guys. Just a humble Bible study and get-together for those Saturday night girls I go to church with. It’s not like I need to rent an event center, and it won’t even require a microphone.

But for this quivering heart it’s scary and big.

God calls us to live big.

“The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”  (Genesis 12:1 NIV)

At the end of the day, we have to recycle the list of all the reasons we’re not good enough to do what God has asked us to do. And then we do what he says, like crazy people.

Cra-zy.

So what is it God keeps putting in front of you?