On Choosing to Follow (feat. Andi Andrew)

She said I was “cute and entertaining.” Cute and en-ter-tain-ing. Take me now, Lord.

I had just finished speaking at a church, having completely poured myself out and at my most vulnerable, when a well-meaning woman said I was cute and entertaining. I’m sure she thought it was a compliment, but she may as well have slapped me across the face, and I didn’t feel like turning the other cheek. My internal dialogue went into an unholy nosedive.

Her words may have had more to do with what she came to the gathering to receive than what I was actually giving, but they hit me hard, and so they should have. Instantly, I went into a contemplative, internal spiral. If thoughts could be heard, mine would have sounded like deep, guttural cries for God to search my heart:

Am I really only cute and entertaining? Is that all I have to give? Is that what I’ve been doing all this time, feeding consumers with entertainment? If so, then what is the point? God, if that’s the case, forgive me . . . oh, and also, I quit.

A tad dramatic, but that’s truly how I felt in the moment. God has given me the gift of humor when I communicate, and it often comes out right before I bring a truth in love that’s potentially hard to hear. Laughter has a way of softening the heart to hear what God desires to say. But upon hearing her “compliment,” I had to ask myself a hard question:

Am I entertaining people, or am I teaching and, more importantly, living in the fullness of the gospel?

Humanity is desperate for the good news that we are restored in Jesus to our redemptive and created purpose in the middle of a world full of pain and suffering. All eyes are on the church to see if we’re really living out what we say we believe. Again, I had to ask myself,

Am I following Jesus and leading others in the way to follow Him, or am I faking it, putting on a show and aiding in implementing Western consumerist culture in the church?

The last thing I want to do is be fake or put on a show—ever.

Think about this: every painter’s work is imperfect, but even the imperfections of a master craftsman can make their work incredibly valuable. But a fake is worth almost nothing. In fact, in most industries, producing fakes is a crime. A fake isn’t what it’s pretending to be. The seller of a fake is hoping you’ll be fooled and pay full price for something that is only a cheap imitation. Fakes rip people off. And the one who “sells” us a watered-down, fake, impotent Christianity is the enemy of our souls. As followers of Jesus, we should have endless grace for imperfections but zero tolerance for fakes. Sometimes we are simply more influenced by modern culture, accepting it as our highest form of reality and allowing it to become our ecosystem rather than creating a heavenly culture and ecosystem here on earth.

I think we can all agree that the last thing a lost and dying world needs is an army of cute entertainers who are only interested in putting on a show with an impotent gospel that temporarily fixes our symptoms but doesn’t heal the heart, soul, and body.

Faking it is not how we intend to live, and sometimes, when we do find ourselves doing so, even unintentionally, we’re not really sure how we got there. We all need the reality of Jesus, not just a religious concept of who He is. And we need to see the manifestation of the good news He brings in and through our lives in the midst of the darkness, where bad things are still happening to good people on a daily basis.

To be clear, God does not cause bad things to happen; He is good to the core and has only goodness to give. We live in a fallen world that is in grave need of the good news of the gospel through Jesus Christ who reconciles all things. As today’s church leaders and followers of Jesus Christ, we are empowered to pray that His kingdom come and His will be done here on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10) to thwart the darkness and cancel every assignment of the enemy, releasing God’s goodness wherever we go.