Challenged and Confused

So I realize that it has been a while since my last post, and I apologize for that. I'll have you know that I haven't been slacking off, there are a lot of things going on here that require a lot of attention, and although that isn't a very good excuse, it is a reason. So anyway, on to the actual post.

As I sit here and I think about all that is happening with the ministry (we have a leadership team retreat starting tomorrow, I'm raising money to go to central Asia, one of my best friends is getting married in a little over a month, which is right before I actually leave the country, we have three weeks of school left including finals....) I am overwhelmed with something that God has been teaching me over the last week or so. In fact, it actually has consumed my thoughts much more than anything else has, which either means that I trust God to fulfill His promises (which I hope) or that I'm using this other thought as a distraction (which I actually doubt, I don't normally get distracted when I need to come up with $5k). The thought is about what Christianity actually is. You seen, the problem I'm having is that when I look at the way the Christian faith is described in the Bible and the way that I see it lived out in my life and the lives of many around me just don't seem to match up.

Really, this is just a thought. I read passages in the Gospels where Jesus tells people that they will not have a place to lay their head, that they cannot go back and bury their father, that they cannot not even say goodbye to their families, and I wonder how it is that any became Christians at all. I was reading the end of the book of Joshua (right around where the famous "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" verse is) and even there you get the feeling that people are trying to be talked out of following God. Not that they're actually being talked out of it, mind you, but I get that feeling because what Joshua and Jesus were doing was laying out what it means to be a follower of Christ. If we're going to be Christ followers, disciples of Jesus, then we have to follow under the same expectations that drove away so many throughout the gospels.

This is only my initial thought, which means that I don't even know what to do with this and I have no idea what it means. I just feel challenged to read the Gospels and the Bible to actually live out what it says. This was a very weak post, I know, but that's where I'm at: confused, unable to put together complete thoughts, and challenged to live out what the Bible says Christianity is.

 How about you?