Wreck Your Life

You haven’t lived until your life has been wrecked.

Far too many of us today live a life of ease and comfort. We think that Christianity is about being “happy, happy, happy all the time,” seeing God miraculously answer all our prayers, and have all of our Christian friends surround us with financial and emotional support every time the least little thing goes wrong.

But this isn’t the way Christianity really is.

At least, this isn’t the way it is supposed to be.

I am convinced that truly following Jesus will lead to two things.

First, it will lead to Jesus wrecking most (if not all) of your plans for your life. Despite what you might have heard in church, the plans of Jesus for your life do not closely resemble the American Dream.

If you have dreams for what you are going to do for God, and how your ministry will grow, and what books you will write, and how many children you will rescue, and how churches will beat down your door to ask you to come speak for them, the chances are pretty good that if you are following Jesus, none of this will happen and instead, He will lead you into obscurity, poverty, nakedness, danger, and sword (Rom 8:35).

It is only when you look around and see all your dreams shattered around your feet that you are at the place where Jesus can truly begin to use you as He desires.

Second, following Jesus will lead to others whose lives have been wrecked. 

I am becoming more and more convinced that if we look around at our friends and acquaintances, and none of them have any serious problems (more serious than what is shared in the typical church prayer meeting), we probably have not followed Jesus very far down the path of discipleship.

When we follow Jesus, He leads us to addicts and criminals, to the homeless and prostitutes, to abandoned children and single mothers. This world wrecks a lot of lives, and Jesus has sent the church to bring love and healing into such lives. When we follow Jesus, He takes us to those whose lives have been wrecked.

Some people wonder what following Jesus looks like. It looks like wrecked people loving other wrecked people.

For this reason, I was thrilled to recently read Jeff Goins’ book, Wrecked.

Jeff is an up-and-coming author, and this is  his first commercially published book. In it, Jeff shows through vivid story-telling and insightful writing how following Jesus wrecks our lives. Much of what Jeff writes comes from his personal experience in working with homeless people in Nashville. He shows that while this is a painful experience, it is necessary if we are going to allow Jesus to lead us to other people whose lives have been wrecked.

One of the things I really appreciated about Jeff’s book is that he points out through story after story that finding others to love and serve does not require us to go to a different country. When it comes to following Jesus by loving others, there is nothing magical about salt water. You don’t have to go overseas to follow Jesus. You can love others right in your own country, in your own city, probably even in your own neighborhood.

If this sounds like a book you want to read, I recommend you purchase it in the next four days. Why? Because if you do, and then tell Jeff you bought it, he will send you $158 of free resources about the book and about how to become a writer. That’s $158 of free stuff, just for buying a $10 book. Not bad at all….

Oh, and by the way, Jeff posted part of my own “Wrecked” story on his website. If you want to read it for yourself, it is here: How I Went to Prison.

So has your life been wrecked? You are not alone, and Jesus is bringing you to the place where you can truly be used by Him.

Do you want to follow Him more closely? Try to wreck your life by looking for those around you whose lives have been wrecked. Then love and serve them and watch how Jesus wrecks your life. But in so doing, He will rebuild it into something greater and grander than anything you might have imagined before.