Reckless Abandon

Lately several people have mentioned how I've been slacking on my blog posts. It's not for lack of trying, but rather lack of the proper amount of time that I need to overcome writer's block. I have a lot of old articles and letters I've written saved on my laptop, so I went through several of them today to see if I could use any of them as a blog post. Sometimes I'll run across something I wrote months ago and have no recollection of writing it whatsoever, and it's like some part of me in my past comes back to help me in my present. I found this document today titled "Reckless Abandon", and I didn't have any memory of writing it until I got halfway through and realized it's a letter I wrote Faith while she was in Papua New Guinea this summer. I know it's a letter, so I hope she doesn't mind me sharing! I definitely poured my heart into this one, and I'll try to scale this high wall that separates me from writing again soon and have some new stuff for you. Now, on to the letter...

I was just reading Robin Jones Gunn's latest blog post, and it was titled "Reckless Abandon". It was about when the Lord calls us to do something, to just do it, and don't worry about it. You may have already read it, I know you get her newsletters, too.

It reminded me of Lady in Waiting, when they pointed out that Ruth followed Naomi, and then the Lord, with reckless abandon. I think that's my new favorite phrase. It's so much wrapped into 2 little words.

We do so much in our lives with reckless abandon and label it "spontaneity". Sometimes even dangerous, thoughtless things that could end our lives. Wouldn't following the Lord with this same abandonment be so much more rewarding?

What if the Disciples had not dropped what they were doing to recklessly follow the Man who told them to? Where would we be without the Gospels? The Bible wouldn't be complete if John had not abandoned his net, his career and livelihood, to follow Jesus. We wouldn't be sitting in church on Sunday nights studying the book of Revelation if he had said "I should probably think about this for a few days..."

I have this thought so engrained in my mind that when the Lord doesn't ask me to recklessly abandon for Him, I feel confused and a bit misplaced. Like why doesn't He think He can use me? What's wrong with me? But I know that it's in the willingness to be a reckless abandon-er that He's using me. Being here, putting out newsletters, editing and mailing prayer letters, helping with the 3 camps and working in the nursery, is me getting more accomplished for the work of God than I could in a third world country. It's in His calling where we recklessly abandon our dreams and wishes that we get the most done.

You, too, have recklessly abandoned for the work of Christ. You've put your life on hold for six months, because He's given you the burden for PNG, which is a way of asking you to recklessly abandon some things for His cause. You don't know if you'll marry someone called to the mission field, you don't know if you're going to keep going back and back to New Guinea. And that is reckless abandonment. Setting those thoughts and worries aside and working for the glory of God.

Being a Reckless Abandon[er] isn't the same for everyone, I think that is abundantly clear. Some of us will be asked to give up material items and comforts, some of us will be told that our dreams and desires are all wrong. And we will change, we will be reckless in doing so.

But, just maybe, those of us who are reckless enough to abandon will be the ones who, when people look back years after we are gone, they will say "Where would we be today if they hadn't recklessly abandoned for the Lord?"