How many Christians do you know whose presence stirs you?
Spending time with a provocative [intriguing, remarkable, compelling] person leaves you with questions:
"How have I [we] been drugged?" so to speak.
"How does this new insight or revelation set me [us] free?"
And the questions will not let you seek the safety of mediocrity or the tedium of dullness. Yet, as disruptive as the provocateur's questions are, shame isn't the provocateur's goal: Recovery and restoration are.
Provocateurs are...
"passionate change makers willing to be shunned if it is necessary for them to make a point,"
says Seth Godin in his book, Linchpin.
Provocateurs are not willing to be cogs in a machine, or passive wallflowers. They know their presence was sanctioned by God and that the effect of their life reveals something about God. A provocateur's presence in your life is indespensible.
A provocateur's presence in a system is rarely tolerated because, like the Borg Collective in the Star Trek series, the Collective declares, "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." But the provocateur's perspective is ironically, the very thing the system needs.
False scripts and expectations
Provocateurs are not willing to yield their God-given splendor to false scripts and expectations, nor are they willing to keep quiet simply because it's an unpopular thing to say.
Note: Provocateurs are not unkind. They proceed with humility. People are not their target: Disabling and destructive assumptions are. If they provoke, it is to bring about a better day. Inspiration and aliveness follows them. They raise questions from which there is no retreat.
They do it because they love.
What is Jesus provoking through you?
Related podcast: "THE UNIQUE GLORY YOU BEAR" [with fellow author, Gary Barkalow]