Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: Messy, Inconvenient Discipleship

One of my favorite practical faith sayings is if we aren't living messy, inconvenient lives, we're not following Jesus closely enough.

I want to explain this further, as I think the saying on its own could be misinterpreted.

The heart of the comment is Jesus invites us out of comfort into trust. Comfort implies order, consistency, coziness, and little risk-taking. Jesus has bigger things in mind for us.

For example, inconvenience. In the Good Samaritan parable, the priest and the Levite couldn't be bothered with helping the injured traveler. Schedules might have been a factor; fear, another factor. Also, touching an unclean man would mean they couldn't perform their rightful duties for seven days as they purified themselves. It would be inconvenient to shirk their assigned jobs.

Another example comes from Jesus himself. It seems like whenever he was called to a home or tomb to perform a miracle, he was delayed along the way by other people needing a miracle from him. Jesus didn't always show up on time. If we live inconvenient lives, we may not always show up on time as we address someone's need or cram our calendar a little fuller to be more helpful.

This is where I want to emphasize you don't have to live like I do. Anyone who is around me would tell you I live an overachieving, Type A life where I probably won't say "no" to things I'm passionate about. (I'm much better at saying "no" to requests that don't align as well with my passion and call). I don't want to imply Jesus wants everyone to live an overachieving life; not everyone is or should be wired that way.

Instead, I want to stress openness and willingness to move as the Holy Spirit directs us. It might mean stopping to talk with a homeless person, not just handing money (or not). It might be mean getting our hands dirty with tasks we normally wouldn't do; the Samaritan's dressing of the traveler's wounds was too messy for the priest and the Levite.

We should be interruptible. We should be willing to relinquish comfort. We should trust Jesus when we sense the Spirit urging us to get involved and take a risk. We should do the dirty work of the kingdom, believing no job is beneath us.

Messy, inconvenient lives go off schedule, follow the Spirit's direction, and obey what may seem like the Spirit's whims. We allow ourselves to be rerouted for God's kingdom. To me, that is faith put into practice.

Based on this post, you would not be surprised that I wrote a book, study guide, and video series entitled, "From Comfort Zone to Trust Zone: How Jesus Urges Us to Take Leaps of Faith for His Kingdom." Learn more at CecilTaylorMinistries.com/from-comfort-zone-to-trust-zone .