Radical by David Platt.  One in a Million by Priscilla Shirer.  Those are the two studies I'm in the midst of currently.  I honestly am not TRYING to be a spiritual giant by completing two Bible studies at once.  It just happened that way.  The truth is, these two studies are having quite the opposite effect from proving how amazingly Godly I am.  They seem to be the agents of some great conspiracy to awaken me to how far I have to go.  To how much God loves me.  To how I need to be motivated and awed by that love.  And, I need to put feet to it by being changed.  RADICALLY.  So that I can be one in a million.

Both these studies are dove tailing together, in a way only God can do. They repeat the same themes, albeit in different ways, each week.  And, if there's one thing I've learned from walking with God all these years, it's this.  If He's telling me something, I better listen.  If He's telling me the same thing twice, I really better listen.  

One in a million is the study of the Exodus.  To be honest, I wasn't quite sure why she chose that name--one in a million.  Until the first video.  She explains that two million Israelites were delivered from Canaan.  Two million of God's chosen people found themselves suddenly released from the shackles of slavery.   Two million were led by a pillar of fire and by clouds.  Two million stepped through the parted Red Sea.  Guess how many of those two million actually stepped foot into the Promised Land?

Two.  Yep.  Just two.  She thus presents the challenge to be the one in a million in our generation who will shrug off the captivity of our culture and walk into abundant living.  As David Platt would say--who wants to be radical?  Not just following the status quo.  But, freeing ourselves from it to seek God with radical abandonment and obedience in order to discover radical living.  

I love this quote from Priscilla Shirer, "One of the most gracious things the Lord has done for me is to strategically place individuals in my life who help me on my journey into Canaan...I am carefully holding fast to those [friends] whose pursuit of God encourages my own.  I call them my 'wild women.' "

The journey is always easier when we have a buddy, right?  Joshua had Caleb and vice versa as they entered that Promised Land.  We need an amiga, compadre, companion.  The road to radical can be lonely.  So many are unwilling to traverse the truly brutal and beautiful road to fierce intimacy with our Savior.  Many are happy to attend on Sundays, sit in the pews, and maybe do a Bible study here and there.  It's a minority that says, "it's not enough!  I want to learn to give all of me so I can all of You."  It's precious few that dig into the Word in such depth that they allow their lives to be mirrored in the truths and challenges they find there.  

I don't know about you, but I need me some wild women.  To be sure, I am blessed to have some in my life.  And, it makes all the difference.  We need a friend we can call on with a struggle who presses us in our walk with Christ rather than pacifies us with an answer that tickles the ears.  We need a friend willing to speak the truth in love, sit through the muck and the mire, wipe away the tears, and cheer lead us all along the way.   We need us some women so wild for God that it's contagious.  It makes us want what they have.  We need to be intentional to carve out time to cultivate these types of relationships.  And, we need to be those wild women who are willing to dig in deep and walk through the trenches together through every wildnerness it might take to reach abundant intimacy with God. 

We were made for relationship.  It was God's design from the very beginning.  I don't know about you, but I don't think God meant for us to offer a pleasant greeting and suggestion we do lunch sometime.  I think God meant for us to put it on the calendar and do it.  To spend time together, sharing honestly--even the hard stuff.  I don't think God meant for Eve to be a superficial, pleasant and distant companion for Adam.  In fact, we know he meant for them to share an intimacy and closeness that left no subject off limits.

Glimpse of GRACE:  In our crazy busy, running at the speed of life, instant gratification society, I believe we are missing the point completely.  We are so connected to technology that we are disconnected from each other.  I think I was born in the wrong century sometimes.  Not that I'd want to churn my own butter, but I wouldn't mind being a pioneer woman sitting with my quilting bee, discussing anything and everything in the world with a circle of woman I could count on, through thick and thin.  No television.  No radio.  No cell phones.  No distractions.  I wouldn't mind a friend popping in for a cup of sugar and staying through a cup of coffee and then some.  What about you?  Are you surrounded by women, yet yearning for soul connection?  Do you need some wild women?  Don't forget--Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm. Proverbs 13:20

Turn off the radio and the television and silence the cell phone.  Now listen.  Do you hear that?  It's the call to be wild.