I spent a lot of time thinking through my notes from Catalyst a few weeks ago. I thought that God had already finished slapping me in the face with challenging messages until I came across this video excerpt from Francis Chan’s session.

We skipped Thursday night’s session so that we could hang out and talk with our team. Well, this is what we missed.

Ummm….ouch. Talk about challenging!

Lisa and I have definitely had some times over the last 12 months that we’ve moaned and complained about how hard things are. We knew that planting a church would be difficult. When you’re in the thick of challenges and setbacks all around you it’s easy to feel like the universe is conspiring against you.

But really, isn’t that what we signed up for? Isn’t our life pretty tame compared to the stories of the men and women of faith in the Bible? God called us to be world-changers, to follow in the footsteps of other world-changers who have gone before us.

Just look at this snapshot of the men and women of faith from Hebrews 11:

“Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless – the world didn’t deserve them!” (Hebrews 11:33-38)

…aaaand, then there’s me.

Turns out, I don’t have very much to complain about. Unless memory fails me, I don’t think I’ve had to pray about being delivered from whips, chains and dungeons. At least not lately.

So the real question is, as Francis Chan puts asks, are we living a life worthy of the Bible?

Where exactly would your story fit in the Bible? How many sermons would pastors preach about it? Would people study it or skip over it?