Awkward but Obedient

There’s this moment in Luke 5 where some friends are carrying a paralysed man. They’re trying to bring him to Jesus. But the house where Jesus is teaching is packed—there’s no way in. So they go up to the roof, rip it open, and lower their friend down in front of Jesus.

Can we just pause and think about how awkward that is? You’re tearing up someone’s house. You’re interrupting Jesus mid-sermon. Everyone’s watching.

That’s what faith looks like sometimes. It’s disruptive. It’s not always smooth or comfortable. It can be confronting. It can feel inconvenient.

We live in a world where we want things to be clean. We want things polished. And I think we can sometimes carry that into our spiritual life.

When the worship leader says raise your hands in worship, that’s awkward. When you're told to pray out loud, invite someone, put your hand up to follow Jesus—that’s awkward. But awkward isn’t bad. It’s the stretch of “I’m uncomfortable, but I’m stepping into something different.” We’ve got to lean into the awkward.

And I think God meets us there. Not in the polished moments, but in the stretch. That moment of faith that says, “Even if this costs me comfort, I’m going to follow.”

That’s where the miraculous happens.