... or it's nothing at all

I have been having these epiphanies lately; grand ideas that seem to make some sense out of the world. Today I walked around with a smile on my face, a rare occurrence for me. When I stepped in a spot of that brown mushy stuff that people leave behind after walking their dogs on Bratislava streets, I just laughed to myself. This (the smiling and laughing) is a rare occurrence for me. I know my ideas are not new, but I have rarely heard them preached or seen them in the vision statements of “The Church of Perpetual Dryness”, or “The Church With All the Rules”, and so I just had to write about them. I hope they are a challenge to you.

The latest idea came from a most unlikely source for me – The Bible. I was reading in Acts c. 6 and 7 about Stephen. We all know the story. We’ve read or spoken about it in church or at some study: “Wasn’t that Stephen an awesome guy? Too bad his story was so short. That's how God spread the message from Jerusalem. We'll keep his character in mind when we next choose deacons… Now, where are we going for breakfast.” To me this acount has never been more than a little slice of early church history. It told me nothing about how I should live. Until yesterday.

To follow my thinking, you must first, wrap your mind around Acts 6:5. Stephen was a man full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit. Forget everything else about him. Only 2 things were important enough to record. Stephen was the kind of person we all want to be. He “lived out loud!”, as Steven Curtis Chapman said. He is a model for us. Being full of faith and the Holy Spirit should produce his kind of living.. Forget all the sermons you’ve heard about faithfulness, joy, kind-heartedness, politeness, diligence, mom and apple pie. Living out loud is the standard!

But it’s easier said than done, you reply. And you’re right. This however, is where the epiphany comes in. There is something you have to grasp deep down in your soul to live like Stephen. It’s something that people like Stephen understand and accept. They know the truth about how lives are lived, and this truth is found, between the lines, in Acts 5,6 and 7.

Take a few moments now and read from Acts 5:11 to Acts 7:1. After this Stephen makes his speech. You don't need to read the speech now. Rather, read Acts 7:54 to 58.

Do you see it? Does this grab your attention? Christianity seemed unstoppable. The church was doing everything right. Miracles were occurring. And then things come to a sudden change of direction. One of its most powerful and godly men is murdered by the religious mob. What the heck changed between the time when Peter was arrested, then released by an angel, and the stoning of Stephen? Wasn’t God doing big things publicly? Weren’t people queueing to join the church, or staying well away because of awe and fear? Even priests were enlisting. Why wasn’t Stephen released by angels? Weren’t the thousands of disciples praying hard enough? Just where were all the miracle-working apostles at Stephen’s time of need? Where was the needed miracle?

What does this say to you? Here’s what it spoke to me. Life is not meant to be predictable! I need to say it again, so you don't miss the emphasis. Life is not meant to be predictable. In real-time living, one moment you’re on top of the world, and the next moment you’re hurt or dead. There is no getting around this. It’s how you live in the knowledge of this that is important. Helen Keller said it best, and what she said has been in my brain for the last day or two. “Life”, she said, is either a grand adventure, or it’s nothing at all.” A grand adventure or nothing at all! Stephen knew that, and he lived accordingly. If you are full of faith and the Holy Spirit and live in the knowledge that life is unpredictable, you live out loud, and all the rest falls into place. No rules are needed, other than loving God and others. Constant exhortation and remorse is unnecessary. Trivial hurts and slights are irrelevant. Constant fellowship with God, (prayer), becomes most important. And for me, all the rest of what I read in the Bible about abundant life in spite of troubles, or about living in plenty or in need, starts to make sense. This is real life, and if it’s not our life, then I think it’s because we’re not following the model and we have missed this truth.


Annie Dillard, a Christian writer and naturalist, wrote a wonderful essay called “Living Like Weasels”. She had locked eyes with a weasel on a field trip and couldn’t forget the wild life she saw in its eyes. In her essay she reports how Ernest Thompson Seton had once shot an eagle from the sky, and found the dry skull of a weasel still fixed by its jaws to the eagle’s neck. Weasels go for the throat of their prey, and once locked on, they don’t let go, no matter where this might take them. The weasel, attached to the eagle, had had quite an aerial adventure. Dillard says, “I would like to learn, or remember how to live… as I should, as the weasel lives… open to time and death… We could you know. (We could) grasp our one (calling) and not let it go…Then even death, where you’re going no matter how you live, cannot you part. Seize (your calling) and let it seize you up aloft …

I am resolving to live that way. No more pew sitting or wishful thinking. I will live life the way it is meant to be lived, as an adventure.

What about you?