Coming in to this year, I wanted to learn to be ok with the parts of me I love and to die to the parts of me that are imperfect. During the course of the year, the Lord has challenged me to die to the things I love and to be ok with the facts of my imperfection. And to just Abide in Him.
One of the reasons I am not freaking out about being frustrated when I come back to America, is because I am already frustrated. I am frustrated with the world and its ills. I am frustrated with the Body of Christ and its failings. And I am frustrated, perhaps most of all, with me.
I truly believe that the Lord is not calling me to do something, but to be something. To be in love with Him. I want an unconditional love for God that spills into all avenues of living. I don’t really understand fascinations with fashion, tea, or good foods. My vices are sports, television, and napping. Part of me sees these concerns burning within me and my friends and think, “It is really not a big deal. It is fine, not important.” But I wonder if such a statement is the kind of thing the seed said before it was choked among thorns. I don’t want to do, or be, anything that does not point back to the Lord of all Creation.
I want to die to expectations. They are poison to the bones of my soul. I have a theory – if I think about the last ten experiences I had where I felt most close to the Lord, and all ten have some practical thing in common, I am in an unhealthy place with my intimacy with Christ. We have become slaves to our specific taste in music. We have idolatrized Christian leaders and speakers (forgetting that to follow Christ’s followers is not at all the same as following Christ). I want to stop making choices based on what people think, how I feel, or who else is making similar choices. I want a faith that can worship in all circumstances, with all people, in all moods. One that does not need music, or writing, or affirming opinions, or emotion, or met expectation. A faith that needs, and wants, God alone – and acknowledges, maybe even celebrates, that He is everywhere that He is.
Lastly, I want a faith that is boldly me, faithfully who God made me to be. Our Christian culture has adopted the lie that passion for the Lord looks like a loud, boisterous presence who boldly grabs strangers, jumps around and weeps in worship, speaks in spiritual language, and manifests physical miracles. I am not that guy, never will be that guy, and do not want to be that guy. My intimacy with the Lord is still and quiet, steady and patient. My gift is perspective, disarming conversation, and a willingness to walk joyfully alongside any story. Why is that not enough? Why do I pursue a stereotype that is not me, just because the Christian world has decided to idolize it? I don’t want to be a Christian superhero; I want to be the kind of disciple that you notice less and less, but are somehow channeled to the Teacher because of.
I am coming back to America soon. And I really don’t know what the idea of re-entry really means. The truth is, if I am not ok with being me here, I will not be ok with me when I get home. And if I am not ok with being me at home, I will not be ok when I run off to the next excursion. Home is what the heart is. My prayer is that my life will produce the fullest possible return for Christ’s sacrifice for it on the cross. Such a thing cannot happen if I try to perform for you or for me, if parameters determine divine encounters, or if I am afraid to fail. I read this quote in a book recently: “he who knows himself has no reason to hate.” If this is true, then perhaps he who knows himself is purely free to love. I’m tired of being afraid. I want to be ok with being me.
