I’m off like a shot again as soon as I get the inkling that there is something more I can do for the Lord.  Whenever I get antsy, I want to do all of the things that have brought me close to Him before.  I hate to waste a moment, so let me read one of the thickest books in the Bible all in one sitting, or let me fast for a day or two, or pray for someone for a few hours so that they can know the peace and joy of the Lord.  And that does not even cover active ministry.  Let me give everything I have to offer to care for others.  Let me spend all of my free time sharing with everyone the truth of the gospel.

And I get to the end, and I fall apart.

There are so many people around me that need Jesus.  There are so many which He has entrusted to me.  My heart has ached to see how much suffering there is in my small corner of the world.  And yet I can see no fruit…  I have done what I know the Lord has asked of me.  What have I missed?  I know that I get more busy than I should when the Lord would have me be still; He has to remind me so often to be patient and to wait on Him.  He also has my failures and shortcomings with which to work.  I know that I have so much to learn, and that He is used to working through the most broken of people.  It hurts to accept that I have failed, but I know that my God is bigger than that.

I know that I am young.  I do have so much to learn.  The Lord will grow me into the roles and ministries He has prepared for me, and open them to me when His time comes, but for now, I have none of it figured out.  I don’t regret anything I’ve given to the Lord, but I know that He fed over five thousand with a boy’s five loaves and two fish.  Sometimes I wonder if what I have given Him has even fed five.

Retrospect can make it so difficult to relate to the stories in the Bible.  I can quickly read through to see how they end if I do not know already.  The outcome of my own actions lacks that handy feature, so it is easy to forget or simply not understand what it was for patriarchs and disciples to have faith in the moment, because from my side of history, they are all great historic figures and heroes already.  I can hope to be remembered the same way, but how can I know how to live so that I will be when so much that I do seems to come to nothing?

Can you imagine how this woman must have felt, to hear Jesus say this of her?  My heart yearns to know that what I do for the Lord can have that lasting impact.  So how did this woman do to gain this priceless recognition from the Son of God?

If we start back at verse seven, we read the story of a woman who comes to Jesus and anoints Him with perfume.  The book of Mark adds that this perfume could easily have been sold for three hundred day’s wages.  This perfume, worth almost a year’s labor, was her life savings.

It makes me ashamed to admit that when I give as generously to the Lord as she did, and do not see the results I expect, a large part of me comes to Jesus with His other indignant disciples and wants to demand “Why this waste?”  Nearly a year’s labor, and no one is fed, no one is clothed, and no one seems to love You any more than the day I started!  I don’t mean to blame Jesus for what I perceive as failures, but that is what I often end up doing.

How we measure success is everything.  This woman’s main goal was to show Jesus how much she loved Him.  Is it any surprise that John chapter twelve identifies her as Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha?  I still have so much to learn from her example.  When all is said and done, I want to know that I did what I did to show Jesus how much I love Him.  It is a struggle, but I want to give to Him unreservedly, regardless of what I or the world see because of it.  He sees, and He understands that same struggle.  When there were five thousand people following Him, He fed them with abundance.  They followed Him after that so that they could see more miracles and eat more food.  Instead, He began to feed them with the truth of salvation, and many of them left because it would cost them too much.

That success I have desired is not as valuable or long term as I would have thought.  The Lord has promised that His people will be fruitful, but I’m not always sure what that fruit is.  When I think I know, I often end up chasing the results rather than my Jesus.  I still have much to learn, but I want to spend my time sitting at His feet, giving Him all that I have, and seeking no more than seeing the love in His eyes, whatever may come.

I was speaking to my mother recently about some of the reactions I received from friends and peers when I first stopped watching television, and her observations led me to do a lot of thinking.

When I stopped watching movies and TV shows, and stopped reading books and listening to music that I knew were not honoring Jesus, my social circles didn’t take it very well.  Some of my friends really listened.  A few were even excited to see where the Lord would lead me.  I lost some friends who were very dear to me.  Most, however, turned it into a debate on theological and cultural relevance.  The arguments were generally the same; they talked about how important it is to have common ground with the rest of the world, how Jesus has called us to be very “in the world” people, and how cowardly or deceived they themselves had been when thinking the same way as I now did.  When they could see that I meant to follow Jesus without popular media and wouldn’t change my mind, the discussion would end with the promise that they would pray for me—in the way that indicated they would ask Jesus to make me normal again.

As I was recounting this to my mother, she tacked on an interesting thought.

“If you had told them that you had been reading way too much of the Bible lately, and that you were going to take a break–”

I was baffled at the truth of the thought before she even finished saying it.

Some probably would even have been curious and interested in it.  I don’t say that simply because any of them disagreed with my either.  I know there would have been some who would have at least cautioned me not to take it too far.  Others would probably give me the conversational equivalent of a tackle, or hold an intervention.  Still, most (though certainly not all) of those to whom I spoke about giving up television—knowing me to be a theology nerd—would have been at least curious, if not in full support of me cutting back on my time with Jesus.

I had to think on it for a while after that conversation.  I thought of the fact that most Christians probably wouldn’t notice the difference in a fellow believer’s life if they stopped reading their Bible.  As long as they are still involved in church, and do their best to be nice, would you or I know the difference?  Would they even seem more normal and pleasant?  Do we even know how much the Christians around us spend time with Jesus?

I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the path of recent Christian history, it became embarrassing for Christians (the people who name themselves after Jesus) to know Him, talk about Him, spend time with Him, obey Him, and love Him more than life, limb, family, and the world around us.  It is hardly even spoken of if a Christian is acting in a way that pulls them away from Jesus, because “we shouldn’t judge them” and “we don’t know what is in their hearts.”  So we all label ourselves as “Christians”, but we identify with sports, or characters in movies, or celebrities, our our favorite hobbies, or what school we attend.  That is why so many became offended when I stopped watching television.  In many ways, Christianity is a label, but popular culture is a lifestyle.

Does that make your heart weep?

It all reminds me of what C.S. Lewis wrote in The Last Battle.  All of the talking animals were afraid to speak up when there was a fake lion pretending to be the real Aslan.  They had always been told that Aslan was “not a tame lion,” so how could they argue if He was not the way they thought He would be?  They didn’t know Him.

The real devil has done this in the real world so long, that we are afraid to imagine that there is a true Jesus who can be seen, and heard, and touched, and known.  What if we offend Him be presuming to know Him when we do not?  Best to leave Him as a symbol, and Christianity a label, and focus on things in the “real” world, like celebrities and long novels.

So then, the very reason that Christians are offended when I give up popular culture, and when I talk too much about Jesus and read my Bible more than is natural in someone my age, is exactly why I must talk about Jesus even more and read my Bible more than anyone ever has, if I can.

Because Jesus is real.  I know Him.  True, I don’t know Him much when compared with how infinitely more I can know Him, but how can that mean that I should never try?  It would offend Him to presume that He lies when He says that He wants us to know Him more than anything else in the world.

My dear Sister, never compromise your relationship with Jesus in order to be trendy or culturally relevant.  Trust Him.  Trust Him, and when your friends, family, and peers push you to be normal again, push harder into His presence.  Push like crazy, because crazy is all that the world will see.  Pray.  Seek Him, know Him, obey Him, and watch all that He will show you along the way.  The adventure of knowing Him is without compare.  After all, He isn’t safe, but He is good.

He’s not a tame lion.  We cannot be docile Christians.