Chad Bird - Upside-Down Spirituality: The 9 Essential Failures of a Faithful Life

W e began our journey together through these chapters with a handwritten note inside a used book that asked, Does it matter what one believes? Or is anything okay, just so long as you feel good about it? What weve discovered, along the way, is that all of Gods truths matter, but they dont necessarily make us feel good. Often they make us uncomfortable because theyre so counterintuitive to what we hear shouted in society and whispered in our own hearts. When our Father opens his mouth, chances are what comes out wont at first make sense to us. Indeed, it may never make sense to us. But it will make us new. It will remake our minds and hearts. His backward, unexpected words will turn our lives inside out. They will produce the exact kind of shake-up we need to reorient our hearts so that were ready to hear and believe and do Gods will.

That will is always the will of a loving Father. What he wants for ushis will for usis to plant us so deeply within his Son that we bear his image, echo his speech, and walk in his ways. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God, and they are revealed with Christ in this world. They are revealed in varieties of blessedness that characterize us as individuals, workers and families, and worshipers. They are beatitudes that look ugly and weird in the eyes of the world but sparkle with perfect beauty in the eyes of our Father. And isnt that all that matters?

All that matters is that God is pleased with us in Christ, that Christ lives and moves within us, and that the Spirit turns our lives upside down so that our spirituality is now right side up from heavens perspective.

May our gracious GodFather, Son, and Holy Spiritplant these beatitudes within us so that they grow and flourish, we live in newness of life, and the church is rightly accused of turning the world upside down.

The Beatitudes of Upside-Down Spirituality

Blessed are those who fail to believe in themselves, who fail to believe that God believes in them, for they shall find in Jesus-only everything their heart desires.

Blessed are those who dont make a name for themselves but rejoice that their names are written in the Lambs book of life.

Blessed are those who dont follow their hearts, for they follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

Blessed are those who fail at being supermoms and superdads, for they are forgiven children of our Father in heaven.

Blessed are those who fail to find their calling, for theirs is the kingdom where life and love and service find them.

Blessed are those who fail at finding anyone in this world who completes them and who fail at sustaining their marriages by love alone but are completed and perfected in Christ, and whose marriages are sustained by the gift of Jesus and his limitless love.

Blessed are those who fail to conform to this world yet also fail to cut themselves off from it, for they know their true citizenship is in Jerusalem above.

Blessed are those who fail to have a personal relationship with Jesus but who find their life in the community of believers that is the body of Jesus himself.

Blessed are those who fail to believe that bigger is better and who discover contentment and joy in the little message that floods the whole world with peace: Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, for us.