Safety

"cause there's nothing more important to you than your safety."

-car commercial.


"Man...I really hope not."- Mike Donehey.


That was all it took to get me started yesterday. A simple post on twitter yesterday started me thinking... I am so sick and tired of my safe, quiet, little christian life. I don't wanna be safe anymore. Our culture is so safe, isn't it? Airbags. Fire Alarms. House Alarms. Microwaves. I mean, come on what's a safer way to cook than a microwave? What happened to cooking over an open furnace. I mean, don't get me wrong, I AM NOT complaining. I'm thankful that we have all thees things to make life easier and keep us safe. But its so easy to get comfortable. It's so easy to slide into a mode of "I'll just life a quiet, safe little life and throw a 20 in the plate every week and read my bible and pray and that's it." But sometimes following Christ means walking into uncharted territory. Sometimes it means doing something dangerous." Like Mr. Tumnus said of Aslan the great lion in C.S. Lewis' The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe: "Safe? Who said anything about safe?... But he is good."


Been reading Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' for school. In the story, there this little hobbit, which is basically a midget dwarf, with fur on his feet (yea its weird, i know) but basically he has these dwarf friends who want to go on an adventure and he doesn't want to. He wants to stay in his comfortable little hobbit hole where he can eat 5 meals a day and have is tea time every day and sleep on his nice feather bed and not worry about dragons or goblins or trolls or gigantic spiders or enchanted water that makes you pass out or being captured or killed. He was perfectly content to sit around his little hobbit hole and never see if there was anything more to the world than what he knew.


And it seems so silly to us for this little hobbit to do that, but what we don't realize is that so often, that hobbit is us! We are content to sit in our little hobbit holes and not really take the risk of not being safe to see if there's anything more that what we know. We dont want to dig deeperin our ralationship with Christ because thats uncharted territory. We're afraid to see if there's something more that God has for us in life because, quite frankly, that's dangerous. I don't like writing rant blogs because that's dangerous for me as a writer. I make a lot of typos. I say things that don't always make 100% sense. But here's my point peeps: If we constantly life in the safety of our own little lives, we will never live up to the full potential that God has for us, because he never intended for following him to be safe. As my friend Sarah Fine (also a writer, but shes a whole lot better than I am) put it: "If Christians throughout the ages depended on convenience [or safety], I can guarantee you, heaven would be empty."


So it's up tp you now. Are you going to keep living in your own safe little world and pretend like theres not anything more out there, or are you going stick your head out of that hole and see the life that God has for you. It might not be safe. It might send you to the darkest, ugliest, poorest, most hazardous places in the world. You might get your heart broken. You might see the hurt on the faces of the homeless. You might see the scars left on this generation but the things of this world God might totally wreck you, and IT WILL NOT BE SAFE . But it will be altogether worth it, and it will be beautiful. It will be good.


"Safe? Who said anything about safe? He's a lion I tell you! But he is good."

It's Only a Song Until YOU make it more.

So the other day I was listening to this song called The Lost Get Found. It's by Britt Nicole. But anyway, the vision behind this song sparked a thought in my head: It's just a song. That's all it is. This song is about reaching out, stepping up, and speaking loud about the name of Jesus and heck, yeah its a great message, but it's just a song!! We sit in our cars and hear songs like that and say "oh that's such a great song" and then for the majority of us, we just move along with our lives. We don't ACT on what we sing about! Listen , there are some awesome songs out there that call the body of Christ to BE the body of Christ. Have you EVER asked yourself why?

Matthew West- The Motions

Superchic[k]- Cross The Line

Skillet- Looking for Angels & Awake and Alive

Why do songs like If We Are the Body by Casting Crowns and Give Me Your Eyes by Brandon Heath move us to tears?

Why does Barlow Girl have two whole albums committed to this message- How Can We Be Silent and Love and War?

Why does Jeremy Camp not only have a song called Speaking Louder Than Before but also have a ministry called that?

Have you ever asked yourself WHY!? Why do artists keep coming out with songs like this?

It's because we don't live what we sing , people!! Listen to me!! We don't do the things that these songs call us to do.These songs are awesome and all, but they wont change the world. WE the PEOPLE are the ones that have to take action and move in our communities. WE are the ones that have to go out and make the difference. Until we start to BELIEVE what we sing and then out of that belief in our hearts, we begin to act and to speak and to live, it's just another song!!! It doesn't become a MOVEMENT until WE live it!! Do you hear me, people?!?


This is NOT a call to go out and live your life better FOR God.

This is NOT a call to do more, be better, live better, read you bible more and to believe that that's gonna make you a better person so you can change the world.

This is NOT a call to go tell everyone you meet 'Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you, hey did you know that Jesus loves you?"

This is NOT a call to believe that someones salvation depends on you.


This IS a call to start living BECAUSE of God.

This IS a call to realize that YOU are not the one that's gonna change the world. It's the spirit inside you that's gonna change the world.

This IS a call to stop believing that someone getting saved depends on you, because it doesn't. It's always supernatural, I don't give a darn as to whether they were born and raised in the church or if they were a homeless drug addict.

This IS a call to start putting actions with words.

This IS a call to not just let a song give you 'a moment' but to let it sink in and penetrate.

This IS a call to step out and live what you sing.


The world is asleep.

It's been asleep for far too long.

Are we going to be the generation that shakes this world awake so that it will never be the same?

WILL they remember?

Or will we also fall into that deep sleep and let the chance pass us by? Will we be just another generation in this world, or will they remember we were here?


"What if we lived like we sang?" -David Crowder.


angie