When you choose to live an uncommon life, people start to ask questions. It’s like they sense a change and immediately have to restore the status quo.
We’ve heard it so many times. Other people’s opinions about our finances, the way we live, or how long we choose to wait. I can’t tell you how many times people have asked us these kinds of questions:
Can’t you just take out a loan? Just apply for a mortgage! Why don’t you just buy that?
But the biggest question I get is “Why?”.
So here’s my answer every time:
Because God told me not to.
Called to holiness
A long time ago I remember sitting in my office discussing an outline for Sunday worship with a guest speaker. We were taking some time to catch up with one another when I told him I didn’t know what I was called to.
I was confused. As a young 23(ish) year old, I had been told my entire Christian life that I would have some grand calling one day. But I just didn’t hear it. I knew a long list of things I wasn’t called to be (IE a teacher, Lord bless you all), but I had no idea what I was supposed to be, and it was wearing on me.
This man looked at me and said “Yes you do, you are called to be Holy. That’s your calling”.
1 Peter 1:16 says “Be Holy, for I am Holy”. The greek word for holy is Hagios, which literally translates to “be set apart, or different from”. Now for the Israelites this makes sense. They were given strict rules to follow which drastically set them apart and differentiated them from the Gentiles.
But what does that mean for us today?
I think we all would say it means living a Christian lifestyle, praying, going to church and so on. But what if we started living every aspect of our lives differently than everyone else? This is the “Why” behind the uncommon adventure.
What do I mean? Let me explain.
The Bible tells us not to live in debt. Proverbs 22:7 says “The borrower is slave to the lender.” Meaning that we literally are selling ourselves into slavery when we go into debt. And being a slave means that we are not free to do the things that God has for us. Then again in Romans 13:8, Paul tells us to pay off any debt we have so that the only thing we have to owe one another is love.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that if you enter into debt you are a sinner, but it doesn’t have anything good to say about debt either. Not to mention if we take into account that 8 out of 10 americans live with debt and 7 out of 10 believe that it’s necessary (https://www.ramseysolutions.com/personal-growth/managing-money-gods-way). So if roughly 80% of America lives in debt, and we are called to be set apart, what does that mean? Well, the way that I see it, we shouldn’t be living in debt.
No, we aren’t sinners for living in debt, but if we are truly chasing after holiness, why would we want to do what everyone else is doing? When we live without debt we can live generously, do more, and be wholly available to do whatever God asks of us.
Be Holy, for I am Holy
Holiness means to be different in every aspect of our lives, not just going to church on Sunday or staying faithful to our spouse. Being Holy means to continually strive to be better than we were before Christ, and that means doing things differently.
So here we are. That’s why The Uncommon Adventure exists. We are called to be holy and that’s why we live without debt, steward the things we are blessed with, try to live healthy lifestyles, and choose to trust God when things get scary.
That’s what our blog is about. Being uncommon. Living life in a world that believes in instant gratification, pushing your way to the top, managing businesses unethically and choosing happiness over love. I don’t believe that is what God wants for me, or for you. Holiness is about fine tuning everything in your life to align with the spirit.
I want you to live a life that is blooming with possibility. I want to see you flourish and grow because I believe that God wants those things for you. He is calling us to live differently than everyone around us. To be examples of trust and faithfulness, and I believe we have to chase after Holiness in order to get there.
The things on this blog might seem random, but they are all connected by the idea that if we are called to be Holy, we have to be uncommon in everything we do.
your turn
Join me. Start your uncommon adventure. Be different. Stop living with debt, stop chasing riches, stop blending into the landscape of our world and be uncommon. I want to show you how.
This is the hard truth. You have a choice and you can choose to continue doing things the way you’ve been doing them. You can continue to do what the world says is easy. Or you can choose to be different. Make the decision now.
Over the next weeks and months we will be posting more tools for you to begin your adventure. I pray they help you on your journey in the same way they’ve helped me.
Appreciate you sharing from your heart & challenging & encouraging words