Crazy Love, Chapter 1.

I like how Francis Chan gives several examples of the complexity and details of life with the 280 muscles in a caterpillars head, our own bodies, etc. This helped give me a deeper understanding to how awesome God really is. Like Chan said, He didn't have to make up so many kinds of laughter, but He did. Why? Because He is God! God put special care and detail into everything He created. In my mind, that speaks to the character of God and who He really is. He made each of His children in His own image and cared about each of us enough to design us to His perfect specifications. Whether we have blond hair or we're a brunette. Whether we have freckles or not. Even though we all have things we don't like about ourselves physically, God created us to be exactly what He desired.

Page 28: "I sometimes struggle with how to properly respond to God's magnitude in a world bent on ignoring and merely tolerating him." This quote really caught my attention because it's so true.

The world we live is not one focused on praising and worshipping God the way we should.

The way God wants us to. I'm guilty of this myself. Every day. I can't count the number of days that I've lived where I just wake up, focused on my own agenda and then squeeze God in where I can. It happens way more often that I'd care to admit. And the truly sad part of it is that after I've done the minimal I can, squeezing a few pages of reading or a few minutes of prayer in between what I have planned, the truly sad part is I feel like I've done ok. Not always. There are times where I actually recognize I need to be doing more, but often I just go on about my day and don't think twice.

When I compare this to the days where I wake up and am focused on God and continue to refocus on Him throughout the day, I can see the difference in myself, my home and my entire life.

So why don't I always wake up and get focused?

Too many distractions. Not that this is an excuse, but there are so many things that distract me. Even before I open my eyes in the morning I can be in a bad mood. Whether it be because it's too early, too cold out, my cat slept on my head half the night, I can easily wake up and entirely miss everything good about the day. As simple as being able to wake up. Being given another day to live. Being healthy and having a loving husband wake up beside me. Being able to drive to work with my husband, having a car to drive and a job to go to. None of this even enters my mind sometimes.

Like Chan says on page 29: "Most of us know that we are supposed to love and fear God; that we are supposed to read our Bibles and pray so that we can get to know Him better; that we are supposed to worship Him with our lives. But actually living it out is challenging."

I also liked where Chan wrote about a few of the different characteristics of God...

God is holy. God is eternal. God is all-knowing. God is all-powerful. God is fair and just.

My favorite explanation came under "God is eternal" on pages 31-32 where Chan writes, "Not being able to fully understand God is frustrating, but it is ridiculous for us to think that we have the right to limit God to something we are capable of comprehending. What a stunted, insignificant god that would be!"

It can't get any truer than that.

But how often do we try to fit God into a box that we understand? Too often. We question and wrestle with things that have happened in our lives and immediately try to shrink God. We don't understand why He would allow good people to go to hell. Even though He clearly lays out the only way to the Father is through Jesus (John 14:6). So instead of acknowledging that God is who He says He is, we struggle with understanding it. This is where faith should kick in. We will never understanding all who God is or all that happens to us.

This is why Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." It doesn't say in everything you understand acknowledge Him, but in all your ways. Even, and especially when we don't understand.

God is the creator of the universe and who are we to question Him? He owes us nothing, but we owe Him everything. I often find myself in situations I don't understand and admittedly don't agree with, but lately I've been getting a lot better at not trying to figure things out, but rather looking for what God might be trying to teach me. Often it is just the complexity of the simple lesson of trust.

Trusting Him.