Jesustrek

How many times did you hear this phrase when you were growing up?—“Don’t be a nuisance!” Being a nuisance was always considered to be a bad thing. You can imagine my confusion when I heard a Christian speaker say that he wanted to be a holy nuisance.

Most people have had bad experiences with “religious” people. Some individuals will try to shove their beliefs down your throat. Cult members will ring your doorbell, anxious for an opportunity to share their warped view of God. Your friends on social media will question your faith and call you names if you don’t share their fantastic meme that simply must be passed on in order to save the world. There are people all around us who give religion a bad name because of their obnoxious behavior.

So you can see my reservations when this fellow tells me that it is his goal to become a holy nuisance.

However, the more he talked, the more I understood his position. Finally, I came to agree with him. Far too often we are much more timid in our faith than we should be. We err on the side of caution rather than on the side of boldness. The result is that people aren’t challenged to make life-changing decisions.

Therefore, I too want to be a holy nuisance. I want my words to linger in people’s minds long after our conversation has ended. I want people to lay awake at night because of me, thinking about how they are living their lives in the sight of God. I want to stir people from their spiritual slumber and challenge them to take action.

Yes, I want to be a holy nuisance! How about you?

“With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.’ Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”—Acts 2:40-41.