i live for comfort. food i like. my bed. my house the way i want it. i live for a certain amount of sleep. i live for my goals, that i might reach my standards. i live for enjoyment. i live for good conversations with friends. I live for safety. I live for feeling something. i live for feeling lots of things. encouragement. love. serving. making people feel good. or making me feel good? i live for making it. i live for being enough. i live for being who i think i need to be. i live for things. i live for now. or at the very least the, near future.

i live for me.

Comfort, enjoyment, and being enough are the ones really sticking out that mark my daily life.

i say i love Him. I say i wish to be all in. I say He is what matters. I say He is everything and more than enough. I say His word is life. I say I choose Him.


What does living for Him look like really? Paul. Katie Davis. George Muller. Jim Elliot. Forsaking all to follow Him.

American Christian life is so watered down. It's easy. It's comfortable. Which is why so many claim it. Because to be an American Christian it doesn't cost you much. Go to church on Sunday. Be nice. Pray before meals. Seek Him kind of. Is that what Jesus meant when He said, sell all that you have and follow Me? I have no place to rest my head. Follow me. Come. And on and on. I don't think American Christianity is what He is talking about.

There are children starving. They do not know love. They do not have someone standing up for them. There are people consumed with money and enslaved to themselves. There are broken people addicted to relationships. Addicted to things that numb what this life has handed. Brokenness takes many ugly shapes.


LOOK AT IT. LOOK AROUND YOU. Do you not see it? The pain and bondage and slavery and captives? Do you not see people dying all around you? There are babies that have no mom. There are girls that have no idea of their own value.

And I sit here. And I spend money on clothes and fancy meals. And I throw around phrases like "I'm broke" or "I'm poor" and "I'm starving" having no idea the weight of those words.

There is intense suffering. And there are lost people. And broken.

And the babies. Hungry. Hurting. Nobody standing up for them.

And I sit here, in my comfortable house. Getting my degree. With clothes I don't wear in my closet because I don't like the way it looks anymore or because I have had it for years so I want something new. And I complain. And I do nothing.

Because comfort and enjoyment take priority. And because my world view is limited. And because I live for myself.

What would living for Him look like? What would it cost? And would I be willing to pay it.

Because I can't do nothing. How can I? How can I hear that there are babies out there waiting to be rescued. Waiting to be loved. Waiting to be cared for. How do you know that and hear that and do nothing? How do you not feel any sort of responsibility for that?

I don't know. I just don't know. I don't know what is next. I don't know what His call is. Or if those verses in the bible saying take care of the widowed orphaned and poor is enough of a call. I don't know. I don't want to run ahead of Him or sacrifice things He never said too. I don't want to go beyond my measure. Or live under the influence of the lie that people don't need Him just as bad here. But I also know I spent many nights up late until the wee hours of the morning with my heart aching for babes who need to be loved and cared for. Who need a momma. And I know I am fighting to graduate without debt because a small voice in the back of my heart is saying, "Get through. Get through so you can be in position to take care of them." They are waiting. It's not an all consuming voice. But the fact it's there at all scares me. The fact that it is on my heart scares me. The fact that I am at all open to it makes me think it's possible. All of it scares me and I am beyond unsure.

But that tiny voice is shaking things up a little.

No idea what any of this looks like. But I am shaken. And I don't know how to say no. I can not rationalize it. And I don't know what saying yes looks like. But safe, American Christian, live for comfort and enjoyment does not make sense. But living radically as if He is what matters and His kingdom later, and living for that, scares me. The cost of it scares me. And I don't want it. But I do? And I can't ignore it. I can't rationalize it.

So where does that leave me? Burdened and shaken with out a vague idea of what is next.

Jesus, claim my heart and my life and help me live for You.