most of you know, and for those of you that don’t, I went to a private Christian school for most of my childhood. this school really emphasized the importance of biblical knowledge, but did not really convey the importance of pursuing and cultivation a personal relationship with God. so from an early age, when it came to my relationship with Jesus, to learn more about Him and who He is, meant to accumulate more information. memorize more facts. read more. study more. try harder to understand. my faith was found in the Bible, and not in the One whom the Bible is about.
I have always struggled to actually believe in the more theatrical side of faith, the part that I now know as the Holy Spirit. The side that audibly speaks and physically heals. The side that wants to spend time with me and hear from me. And even more than that, wants to be my friend. It’s just hard for my brain to grasp that the Creator of the Universe, who is all-knowing and all-powerful, would take the time to speak to me personally.
so in order to avoid dwelling on that which I cannot understand, i have primarily focused on the fact-based side of faith, for as long as I can remember. The scripture. the written, tangible truth that is unchanging. That’s the stuff for me. That is how I have connected with the Lord, how I have spent time with Him. On the World Race, we have been asked to partake in what I would call “more charismatic” means of connection with the Lord. Things like healing nights, listening prayer, prophesying, spontaneous worship, etc. Things that made me, with my more conservative background, extremely uncomfortable. Things that I deemed as weird and borderline cult-ish. so i would simply go through the motions, do the things, and try to get through them with a positive mindset.
a few weeks ago i was talking with one of my friends about how these things had been such a struggle for me, and it turns out that she struggles with the exact opposite. She struggles more with the fact-based side of scripture, the knowledge side, and I struggle more with the whimsical side, the feeling-based side. and during that talk, i realized that i had only been pursuing half of God. Half of who He is. half of what He is capable of. I had only been pursuing the side of Him that I could understand. The side that I was comfortable with. The side of Him that I could prove, the side that makes sense to me. And that is not faith at all. Faith is believing DESPITE the fact that you don’t understand.
and as I was having this realization, the Lord brought to my mind all of the times I FELT like I should go pray for someone or go talk to someone I didn’t know that well, and then decided against it because I wasn’t sure if it was actually the Lord leading me to do so, or if it was just my own conscience. because I didn’t have faith in Him. faith that He is capable of speaking to me, of prompting me to act. because it seemed too unrealistic that the Lord would specifically tell me to talk to a certain person. but He can. and He does. it was my own temporary confusion and unbelief that may have affected someone’s eternity.
so I sat down and tried to figure out how I could change the way my brain worked, how I could convince myself to believe in something I couldn’t understand. and the Lord revealed to me, that He gave me the mind I have for a reason, and He doesn’t want me to try to change the way that I think. He just wants me to change the way I think about Him. that I cannot keep LIMITING Him. in order to do that, I have to pursue those things that I don’t believe. Those things that don’t make sense, that make me uncomfortable. Because they are not bad things. They are uncomfortable things. Things that don’t match my personal character, but they match His. He knows vastly more than me and is capable of infinitely more than I give Him credit for, I need to give Him the opportunity and the space to show it.
After having all of these revelations, I walked over to a few of my friends who were talking about going to get tattoos. Immediately upon entering the conversation, I decided I was joining. I have always talked about getting a tattoo, always wanted one. But never actually did it. I am an over thinker, and whenever I found a tattoo I wanted, I would worry myself about the future- what if I didn’t like it later in life, what if the job I want later is not accepting of tattoos, and on and on. Overthinking has played a limiting role in my faith in God, so I have decided that I’m out, I’m not doing it anymore. I had been asking the Lord to teach me something, to speak to me, and He had. He had revealed so much about me and about Himself. And I wanted to remember it. I wanted to take a tangible step toward pursuing the whimsical side of Jesus. And I felt like spontaneity went along with that.
so i decided i would get a tattoo that day. no thought required. maybe I’ll regret it later. maybe i won’t. but for now it really doesn’t matter. and why worry about what may or may not happen in the future. because right now i am fully content.
I now have a butterfly on my left forearm. it symbolizes all of what I have shared with you. transformation. from my half faith, to full faith in the Lord, to believing that which I cannot understand. I have experienced so much transformation on the race. not because of the race itself, but because the Lord has been changing me. making me new. and he continues to every single day. and I don’t want to ever stop chasing that change. I don’t ever want to stay the same. to stop growing. to stop pursuing the Father and what he has for me. to be okay with normalcy. with mediocrity. I don’t want to be comfortable.
a few days after I got it, one of my ministry hosts, Anna, gave a teaching on neurological and spiritual health and how they overlap. it’s kind of cool because she mentioned how the right side of the brain is the spiritual side. It is the side that senses feeling, holds complex emotions. It’s referred to as the “creative side”. While the left side of the brain is the mental side. It is the side that does the thinking, holds controlled emotions, and is referred to as the “intellectual side”. I did not even know this, and I got the right wing of my butterfly colored in, to symbolize the whimsical, creative side of the Lord that I want to strive to pursue. I kept the left wing black and white to symbolize the fact-based biblical knowledge side of the Lord that I have been pursuing, reminding myself that I can have, and need, both.
JUST TO BE CLEAR:
One of my big fears is over-spiritualizing things. I never want to misquote or misrepresent the Lord. I think it’s down too often and I think it’s dangerous. Anyways, I am in no way claiming that the He told me to get a tattoo. I am saying that He revealed to me something I need to continue to work on for the rest of my life, and I chose to give myself a permanent reminder of what that was.
also, sorry this blog is YEARS long, I’m a rambler. thanks for making it all the way through.
