I wanna be WEIRDER!!!

I love, love, love books that challenge me: Books that make me look long and hard at areas of my life and evaluate. Books that are clear on why change is needed. And most importantly books that give specific ways to make those changes. This new book by Craig Groeschel fits the bill. It is a quick and easy read and I highly recommend you add it to your summer reading list.

The book tackles 5 major areas of life and examines what is "normal" by society's standards and what is "weird" (God's standards). The areas include time, money, relationships, sex and values. The world has tons to say about each of these areas and this book really highlighted for me how much we just take so many of those values as 'the way things are' or how we should live our lives. We rarely give them a second thought. But when I look at how radically different we should be living in each of these 5 areas, I can see why the world would view us as weird!

We spend so much of our teen-age years (and actually it doesn't change as adults!) trying to not be weird. We want to fit in and be cool. AND we want our kids to not be weird either...so we compromise God's standards and allow them (and even encourage them?) to fit in.

Groeschel talks about drift. As Christians, we don't set out to drift away from God's standards. It just happens. "The current of normalcy will pull you away from God at every opportunity if you let it. When we allow ourselves to go with the flow, literally, then we're moving away from the solid rock of God's presence in our lives."

As I read each section, I realized that there are some areas that I am better at being weird than others. Sometimes I inwardly celebrate when others notice us being different. When our tax preparer (aka my mother-in-law) thinks we are being foolish with our money by giving over twice as much to our church as we pay for our monthly mortgage, I love it. (Although I really wish they got it as well.) When other parents look at me strangely when I don't let my 15 year old kids go to certain PG-13 movies, I don't really care. But there are still certain things that I can't bring myself to be weird at.

But I want to. And with some of the practical tips in this book I hope that I can move in that direction. Basically it comes down to whose acceptance is most important to me....people (strangers, friends, even family) OR God's. If I can keep that at the front of my thoughts, I think getting weirder is going to happen! And I can't wait!!