Greetings from A Radical for Jesus! It’s a brand new year, a great time for reflection, new beginnings, and changes.
As I think about this blog in the new year, I feel that it’s time I make a small change in my focus and content. On my “About” page (the most-viewed post last year, incidentally), I’ve had the following quote:
The purpose of this blog is not to amuse you, to update you on the mundane things of my life or to flap my jaws about whatever I’m thinking about. My purpose is to challenge you to a deeper walk with Christ, obeying Him and giving Him your all. I desire to help those who really want to serve Christ.
I feel that it’s time to change that a bit. You see, when I wrote those words, seven years ago, I felt that, if something was fun, with no other purpose, then it wasn’t really worth doing. In other words, if there was no obvious eternal value to an activity, then you should probably find something better to do. Obviously, working a job to make money to support yourself was a necessary evil to keep you from entering eternity prematurely.
But that philosophy is a recipe for burnout and depression. We need some downtime, some fun times, to rest, relax, and recharge. If you want to add some spiritual reasoning behind it, we have to rest, relax, and recharge sometimes so that we have the mental and emotional capacity to carry out God’s purpose for us.
I realize that there are many people who seem to have lots of time for fun, but little time for God. I don’t want to endorse that behavior at all. I’m not speaking to them.
So, in the future, I am going to give myself the freedom to be normal. A normal radical for Jesus. 🙂
In other words, while I will still focus on the spiritual side of life, I may post some things that are not necessarily overtly spiritual.
Because, in the end, when we follow Jesus, we cannot neatly divide our lives into little boxes of “spiritual” and “secular”. He lives in us, whatever we do. Whether we’re preaching or working, praying or playing, Jesus is present. He touches everything that we do–or at least, He should.
Happy New Year!
(And, yes, I took the picture of the chicken!)
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Happy New Year to you too! It’s exciting to think of what God is going to do this year! And how it’s going to all play out in our working or praying or preaching or playing….and you forgot one thing…shopping. 😀 Just kidding. Had to throw that in there. Many blessings on you and this blog this year. I think it will be great to see the varying things you blog about. I think it will be even greater to see how God shows his glory through that and through you in the stuff you post. God’s best to you this year!