Confident Hope

In the next several posts, I want to spend a little time painting the picture of the vision that our family has for the life we aspire to live. We call this the RealFat Life.

The purpose of the RealFat Life project is to share our family life in-process as we shift away from the conventional, consumeristic, self-absorbed, culturally and environmentally abusive way of life - to the loving, innovative, productive, harmonious, sustainable, and creative life that the gospel of Jesus Christ points us toward.

The purpose of the RealFat Life project is to share our family's life in-process... We want to create a space where you can see that it's okay to embrace the journey.

Unlike my attitude in 3rd grade math, we want to show our work, show our process, though it's riddled with miss-steps and unexpected detours. We want to create a space where you can see that it's okay to embrace the journey, and that, when we're aimed in the right direction, we can patiently work from where we are today, at peace, knowing it's exactly where we're supposed to be.

We hope this will inspire you to share your process with us and with others as well, so that we can root for each other and encourage one another in the trials that life will inevitably bring. The only way to hang in there for the long haul is to hang together!

It's quite a tension, longing for a restored world that won't come until the end of time, yet diligently practicing, getting used to living as if it's already here, so that when that day comes it will feel natural and we'll be ready to rock & roll having already abandoned the foolish attitudes beliefs and habits of this age. We know that we can't restore paradise in this life, but we can enjoy and share a foretaste of what it's going to be like. We look at our life in this world as kind of like training for an athletic event.

Our RealFat Life philosophy isn't about trying to buy a great life by following a bunch of rules. We actually believe it works the other way around. First we're given a great life, then we start to realize that there is a way of living it that works best.

Our RealFat Life philosophy isn't about trying to buy a great life by following a bunch of rules

RealFat Life is about recognizing that our inheritance (which we don't deserve and didn't earn) is guaranteed, purchased for us by Christ on the cross, kept safe and secure for us by God, which we can look forward to with confident hope. [1 Peter 1] It's about the purifying power of the blood of Christ - cleansing our souls so that the Holy Spirit can once again reside within us, and it's about embracing the power of the Spirit to free us from the fear that turns us into greedy, insecure, selfish monsters, and instead, because we can be confident that our future is secure, allowing Him to teach us how to live a compassionate and generous life, enjoying God's blessings within the boundaries that he has told us are good for us.

Because we can be confident that our future is secure we can turn our lives into an act of worshipful celebration.

Throughout most of my life, the kind of Christianity that I've been exposed to has kept things very abstract and theological. RealFat Life is where we share our family's process of putting the implications of the gospel to work in every practical corner of our existence. We aren't prescribing that you do things the way we do (that would be adding to the Scripture and it's a bad plan) rather we're hoping that the Spirit in you will inspire you and show you new and unique ways that you can turn your life into an act of worshipful celebration. This is something that the Spirit expresses uniquely in each person, he made you with unique gifts and placed you in unique circumstances. We hope that by fearlessly trying to understand the implications of our salvation and allow those implications to impact the real decisions we make about how our family lives, it will give you courage to do the same in your own life.

NOTE: If you think all of this Christian stuff is gobbledygook and are only interested in our lifestyle ideas and recipes, that's okay! Please know that the heart behind openly sharing our trust in Christ isn't designed to make you feel excluded, but rather the opposite. We believe that the practices we are striving to employ bring flourishing to anyone who embraces them, whether Christian or not, and we hope you are encouraged, inspired and helped by our ideas.

We know we won't fully realize the vision of RealFat Life and that's ok because we know it will be perfectly realized at the end of time.

Please realize that our lifestyle framework doesn't emerge in a vacuum. If the way we're connecting the dots resonates with you, it would be wise to contend with the fact that our strategy comes from a heart of deep security that, even if civilization collapses, or our bodies are wracked with disease, or war breaks out, none of these things need shake us. Even if we can't live out our RealFat Principles to the full extent we'd like to, even if it takes years to realize our vision, we can be at peace, because we're not looking for our ultimate hope in this life. That unshakable confidence is worth far more to us than the health benefits of our food, or the enjoyment we get from a creative and unconventional lifestyle.

We hope that through the laughter and tears we can share with you a life of joy that tugs your heartstrings and makes you long for the marvelous God who made all of this possible.

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In the next few posts I'll start outlining different categories of RealFat Life and break down our vision for where we'd like to get to some day. Some of the categories I'll cover are: Food, Work, Housing, Community, Stewardship of Nature, Economics, and others!