Let Them Call us Crazy

“If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit.” 2 Corinthians 5:13 NLT

As a person who can’t run and chew bubblegum at the same time, I was astounded by a story posted by Canadian Running Monday that read: The Rubik’s cube is known as one of the toughest mental puzzles, which can be unscrambled in millions of ways. Kei Suga of Japan made deciphering the puzzle a little harder, solving a mind-blogging 420 cubes while he ran a marathon in his hometown of Kashiwa City, Chiba Prefecture. Suga had a time limit of five hours to break the previous Guinness World Record of 254 cubes. He took four hours and thirty minutes to finish the marathon while completing a Rubik’s cube every 100m. Suga used 60 cubes in total and ran 14.5 laps of a three-kilometre course. “At the end of each lap, I exchanged 30 solved cubes for 30 scrambled cubes,” says Suga. Wow! That sure is a crazy way to get into the record books, isn’t it?

And you know, when it comes to being labeled as crazy by doing things completely out of the ordinary, Paul definitely fit the bill. In fact, The Corinthian Christians undoubtedly viewed the apostle as out of his mind (something that he didn’t deny) because he was not only content with a life of pain, trials, persecution, and discomfort if it brought glory to God, but displayed extraordinary joy in all circumstances. In fact, Paul’s main mission in life was to “bring glory to God” by serving Christ wholeheartedly which led him to act in ways that seemed completely strange, peculiar, abnormal and totally weird to the world. Do you just love that or what?

So if you’re called crazy or even fanatical for loving others and following Christ with the same devotion, single-mindedness, and tenacity it takes to complete a marathon, count is as a blessing my friend. May we all be labeled as being out of our minds if it brings glory to our precious Savior.

Heavenly Father, thank You for giving us the example of Paul to follow. Like Jesus he was called crazy for serving You without compromise, excuses or apologies. May we count it all joy to suffer as they did then so that our crazy faith can shine through in the same way. It’s in your precious name we pray Jesus. Amen.

Happy Running!