Shock & Awe

I love to shock people.

Not in the “I just went and had my body completely pierced and sleeved” kind of way…
More in the “you think you have me totally figured out and you so do not, mister” kind of way.

I’ve been told I am a little high maintenance. A little complicated. A tough nut to crack.
Fine by me.
How boring would life be if we were each a Myers-Briggs ESFP? I enjoy being a complex INTJ. It is, after all, who God made me to be…for a reason. And if you know anything about Myers-Briggs and those 16 personality types, you know that my personality isn’t one known for enjoying shock value.

I am absolutely too straight-laced. Therefore, people don’t think I’m funny, so I love to surprise with an off-the-cuff funny remark.

I am extremely opinionated. I keep those opinions to myself a lot of the time so as not to cause too much eyebrow raising, but sometimes I love to listen long and hard, saying nothing, as though I might not care…or know…only to interject my opinion at the perfect moment backed by cold, hard fact.

I love to be an original and despise being copied. Just when someone thinks they have me figured out, I love to do something completely to the contrary just to keep them guessing. (For this I probably do need counseling, referrals welcome…)

But here’s my favorite: I love to shock people with the truth of Jesus, with the love of Jesus, with the heart of Jesus, and when they least expect it.

I love to shock people by doing things that are so far outside the lines of the secular world in which we live that the non-believer, or even the believer, on the receiving end is so stunned they don’t know how to respond.

Just today I had to call a company about a problem and speak to the customer service rep. I was really concerned about a breech of confidential information and the woman took care of it quickly and put my mind at ease. As we hung up I said, “You have no idea how you have helped me today. I hope God blesses you in return for how you have blessed me.”
Ya cudda heard a pin drop….
“Um, wow…thank you so much, ma’am!” was her response. Clearly she doesn’t get much of that blessing stuff at her job.
Jesus meets customer service…

A few days ago I had to call a credit card company that was trying to send me a card & all I had to do was activate it, except that I didn’t want it. I realized that they had us listed as a pending application, which “Mr. Chad McCool Envelope System” did not want on his credit. Good little Discover Card worker that she was just really wanted me to go ahead and open that account in case I ever needed it…even though I was telling her I didn’t need or want it.
I had no choice but to pull out the shock and awe!
Oh, to have seen her reaction would have been priceless when I said, “Well, we are trying hard to live by the rules of Kingdom Finance and part of that for us is following the methods of Dave Ramsey. We’re working hard to pay off all of our credit card debt and cut up our cards (!), and any other debt, so we can even start to work on the overwhelming task of paying off our mortgage in short order. It’s really going to take a lot of hard work and discipline to do all of that and continue to give like we want to. I know that your job is to extend credit, but I just really feel God laying it on my heart to be strict in this.” She laughed at me. (Hey, it ain’t the first time…and it won’t be the last!) Then she told me that she’s watched Dave Ramsey on TV a couple of times. I thanked her for helping me make sure that card didn’t become active and told her that God would bless her for helping me stay on track. I could feel the shock and awe reverberating through the phone line!
Jesus meets 1-800-discover.


Recently I made a call to a utility company. I explained that I bypassed all of the automated choices because none applied. I had to talk to a real person. I explained that I was calling so that I could pay both the current bill and the overdue bill of a family whom I knew could not pay their own. At first the man on the other end could not even understand what I was trying to do. He kept asking me who I was with, what company I was from. I kept responding with varying versions of “I’m not with any company. I’m one of a really small group of people who likes to go around paying other people’s bills.”
When he still seemed to have a bad case of shock and awe, I finally said, “I’m with Jesus.”
He very slowly answered, “We don’t get a lot of that.”
Jesus meets the utility company guy.

I hope that day that I was the vehicle for God to move for that family. I also hope I was a witness to Jesus being alive and active in this world to the guy on the other end of the phone. Very powerful stuff if I was able to do both.

Now these are some of those stories that I’ve mentioned I hesitate to share, but my dear friend Julie has convinced me that sharing it is where the real leadership is.

But here’s what you absolutely must know:
This is not about me! This is about God. Focus on God. Shock and Awe for God, by God, because of God. And it has nothing to do with me other than the fact that I am daily trying to be His hands and feet out there in my very own community, directly impacting one life at a time.

Jesus will show up anywhere that you take Him.
Oh, I know He can get there on His own, but He’s waiting to see how we’ll pack him up and carry Him with us everywhere we go.
For years I’ve been praying the prayer of Jabez. My territory IS being enlarged. But the world is full of noise and distraction and sometimes it takes more than a whisper to get people’s attention.
Sometimes it takes full-scale warfare.

Sometimes it takes shock and awe to shake the system, to sufficiently rock the boat…
…but WOW, the stories…the power of God in it…the legacy…the eternal significance…

WOW!

Question: Where have you taken Jesus today? How have you shocked and awed in His name?