God Wants Four-Year-Olds

Are you so worried you might do something wrong that you will not take a risk in your service to God?  In her too short book, "John Wesley: Christian Revolutionary," Mildred Bangs Wynkoop explains what it means to give ourselves to God as a "living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1-2).   She writes that we are to be....

A virile, vibrant organism.  The figure reminds us of a four-year-old getting into everything, climbing, jumping, bothering everyone, asking questions, challenging parental authority sometimes, but alive.  A living sacrifice is a vital, living person, busting with life, impulsive, individualistic, eager -- with all this put at God's disposal.  ...God is willing to take the risk.  In fact, he is not only inviting the risk but pressuring us to invest our resources with Him.  He surrounds us with all the aids, guides, guards, mercy and chastisement needed to direct this energy into spirital maturity.  
A "living sacrifice" may think some new thoughts-plan some new plans.  A Luther is apt to burst out of the bondage of mediocrity and shatter precedent.  A Wesley is apt to find his heart warmed again and go crashing into a too-comfortable church and stir it up.  He may go running out into the fields - or into the ghettos - where a sin-saturated culture needs the well-harnessed dynamic of a Christian who cares about people.  God needs people who don't quit thinking and challenging life when they become Christians. Heaven isn't here yet.

Have we become to cautious, too careful, too comfortable or too catatonic in our faith. to risk dynamic service for our Lord?  Let's get out there with energized, creative service to God and allow His Holy Spirit to shape, transform, chastise and encourage us along the way.