Crazy Love

I am 99% sure that I have used that as a title before. If I have, I don't really care because it is that important to me. I may have even shared part of this story before, but again, it's an important one.

Almost 5 years ago, I was 20 years old and finishing up my sophomore year of college and looking for a summer job. I was working at a local deli, looking to move home for the summer and wanting a "fun" job. I remembered my teenage days, teaching tee-ball to toddlers and I wanted to do something similar. Through the power of Google and a wild hair in me, I took a job in Michigan as a Day Camp Director. I committed the next 3 months to working with kids outside of Detroit.

To detail that experience you would need to read the 200 page journal I kept that summer. In a nutshell, it was the summer that changed my life.

My church is named Point of Change and as a Christian, you are taught to recognize your personal "point of change", that moment when you knew that you were a believer of God and you had been saved. The summer of 2008, as I was covered in mosquito bites and experiencing the ginger version of a "tan", I reached my Point of Change.

I won't discredit being "born and raised" in the church. Those basic Biblical foundations from Sunday School stories of Noah and Abraham teach us greater things. They form an understanding of the love of God, however, it was in that summer that the overwhelming love of God, the Father, smacked me in the face.

I was hungry for God's word. I sat in a Borders bookstore, soaking up the A/C and praying. I asked God to please provide for me financially and allow me to purchase a book that would set me on fire. I opened my eyes and immediately caught sight of a thin, red book. I picked it up, noting the simple cover design of two arrows and the title...Crazy Love.

I took my seat again and began to read the first few pages. The opening lines told the history behind the name "Christian" and its significance for the first disciples. Just two days previous I had done the same devotional with my campers. I felt the Spirit, I knew this book was meant for me at that moment.

Over the next 3 months I read that book and the Bible and I journaled...

Through God's word and that book I received my first glimpses toward revealing my calling. 2 years before that summer I had felt God calling me to the mission field and now his revelations were like a waterfall, rushing over me on a daily basis.

I rebuilt relationships, I forgave, I prayed, I worshipped. I began to understand the crazy love of God. I fell in love with God. In his glorious answer to my prayer, I was set on fire.

Forgive me if it seems as such but none of it was easy. It's been 5 years. The fire, while always present, has dulled to an ember and rose to a blaze, falling along the spectrum of faith over time. I had to learn that was okay. That is something every Christian faces. Every time I stumble or doubt, or I'm full on in my pit, God whispers in my heart "crazy love".

Above everything, God loves you. No matter what you've done or will do, his love never fails. I have been transformed. God healed me with his love and that is something everyone should know and not for my benefit but because everyone deserves to be happy and you can have that in Christ.

Sunday at church, the sermon concluded our series on The Apostle's Creed and we were reminded of the power of those words. Early Christians spoke those words as a testament. Pastor Todd spoke and I'm paraphrasing but the thought is this. Those Christians, when they spoke that creed, they were saying "I don't care if you ridicule me or judge me. Kill me if you must, but I believe in God the Father." I heard those words and thought "something is wrong if our lives make sense to non-believers", one of my favorite Crazy Love quotes.

At that moment, within the service, I knew I had to be baptized. I want to stand up and for His glory say "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And I believe in the crazy, overwhelming, never failing love of the one true God who gave his son for US."

Crazy Love isn't just a book. It's not an idea. It's not a cool catchphrase. Its cove art is hip and sparks curiosity. It could so easily be a chapter in your life that you remember fondly. That book you read last summer. For me? It's a movement, a calling, it's an ignition within me. It took those Biblical foundations, shone the light on them for me and set my heart on fire for God. It may not work for everyone in that way, but God uses all things for his glory and he showed me that with a simple book that started a cataclysm of God moments in my life. I don't want God moments anymore. I want every word, every breath, everything I do to point back to him. Above all things I want to be like Christ. I want to love. I want my entire being to radiate his love. I want to be crazy.