Send to Kindleby: Staci Stallings
Remember when I talked about how I had written that piece in junior high about how we need crazy people in the world?
Well, guess what?
It turns out that St. Paul actually backs me up on that thought.
Bet you didn’t know that.
In fact, it comes from that same set of verses we’ve been studying. It goes like this:
2 Corinthians 5:13
“If we seem out of our minds, it is between God and us. But if we are in our right minds, it is for your good.”
Did you catch that? If we seem ‘out of our minds…’
What does “out of our minds” mean to you? Crazy. Right?
So what does this very strange verse mean?
I think it means that sometimes when you get really tight with God, like you start to SEE things that other people just don’t see in ways that other people just don’t see them… other people are going to literally think you are crazy!
And let me tell you, as a crazy person, sometimes I think they are RIGHT!
On countless occasions now things have happened to me and through me that I literally cannot explain. I cannot explain WHY my prayer partner didn’t show up the very night that a woman who was hanging by a thread needed me, why I noticed her, why I stopped… why? I don’t know.
I can’t explain how with another friend, I told her something and the very next morning at church that was not only the reading but the point of the whole sermon.
I don’t know why I got up and got on Facebook at the exact time a friend of mine needed prayer… even though my plan was to go right back to bed.
I don’t know why I texted a friend (which I NEVER do) only to find out she was in the middle of a panic attack.
I can’t explain any of that or so many other instances it would fill up an entire book.
What I do know is that when I’m with God, crazy things happen, and very often, I get so enthralled by them that I feel like I’m going out of my mind. I get so filled with the Holy Spirit that it feels as if I might burst any second!
In short, I know how St. Paul feels–connecting with God can make you feel and act and be seen as completely and utterly crazy!
The verse goes on to say that when we are with other people, we try to stay in our right mind–that is, we try to act normal. So when I’m at “Frozen,” and this giant epiphany hits me that I WANT to stand up and tell the whole theater, I don’t because there are times I have to stay in my right mind.
When I’m with new people who don’t realize I’m weird, I try really hard to sound normal–even though most of the time, ideas and understandings are bouncing around inside my head, screaming to get out. Sometimes, the person becomes a good friend, and I let a little of the crazy out. Sometimes we become very good friends, and they get a front row to God Insanity 101.
What I am grateful for learning, however, is that I’m in very good company that way. St. Paul felt it and put words to it so that all these years later, I would know this wasn’t something random but a real hallmark of being in the Spirit.
That’s good to know… especially when I’m feeling a little more crazy than sane because God just showed me something really cool that just totally knocked my socks off!
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