So when you already live in a country other than the one stamped on your passport, when you are trying and failing to learn another tongue, when living this way costs heart-hurt for those family and friends doing life somewhere else….what exactly does radical look like here?
Wasn’t it already radical that I left that house with the pool? Isn’t it radical that I walk most everywhere I go because I don’t own a car? Then again, I have a washing machine and a stove while people at my church wash their clothes by hand and cook meals over a wood fire. Their children go to a public school where teachers are frequently on strike and they brave public transportation to get there. In comparison to this perhaps my life isn’t radical at all.
It’s said that comparison is the thief of joy. I can always find someone in a better situation-or a worse one. God hasn’t called us to compare. He wants me to be faithful where He’s placed me. My living radical looks different than yours.
As our study group finishes discussing the last chapter of Platt’s book I’m trying to write down specifics of what this looks like in my life. Spend time in another context- easy, doing it, read the Bible in a year, commit to memorize, commit to a community of believers, SACRIFICE financially-hmmm, pray for the WHOLE world…..well I guess there’s still some room for growth. Thank you Father, that my children walked home from school today because we live on the campus, for knowledge bowl practice, for violin lessons, for new to us movies, for tortillas delivered to my door, for an orderly office area to work in, for memories of growing up in PA as I read, for a boy so proud of that new stethescope, for a growing children’s church….