It is for freedom’s sake that Christ has set you free!!!
Galatians 1:1.
I realized by the gut-wrenching feelings of inadequacy and loneliness that I felt when our whole group reunited in Singapore that God wasn’t finished wrestling old wounds to the ground just yet, and that maybe I wasn’t going to like this lesson . . .
We were starting our first full day of debrief in the Philippines. We were all together as a squad. I was feeling overwhelmed. So many people around. God spoke very clearly to me all day, “Your identity is not in how many people here like you. Your identity is not in how many friends you have at the end of this year. Your identity is not in how many people here talk to you. It has no bearing on who you are, how loveable you are, how wonderful you are. What matters is that, at the end of the day, I am smiling at you. Live to make me smile. Live to impress no one else.” These words brought me comfort throughout the day as I battled feelings of being in a crowded room, yet completely alone at the same time.
Oddly enough, or not so oddly enough as I am finding out with God, Kyla spoke about Identity that night in our group session. One thing she said that really stood out to me was this: our identity is always under attack [by the enemy] because we cannot do anything until we know who we are. Then she decided that she would speak over us 35 things that God says we are according to scripture and have us claim them out loud. These stuck out to me.
the light of the world; part of the true vine and a channel of Christ’s life; a temple, dwelling place of God- his Spirit and life dwell in me; united with the Lord and of one Spirit with him; God’s workmanship, born anew in Christ to do his work; chosen of God, Holy, and Dearly loved; an enemy of the Devil; Born of God and the evil one, the Devil, cannot touch me; new creation.
What I am going to say next, may shock you.
So after this session we began to worship. (not that part) For the first time in a long time that I felt liberated by the Lord to dance as my act of worship to Him- completely undignified and uninhibited! (not that part either) While dancing I got this overwhelming feeling that God was telling me to shave my head tonight! Do it now! Do not delay! (that’s the part). It’s something I had been planning to do in Africa, but tonight the urge was undeniably powerful. He was speaking to me,
You are a new creation. Everything you previously found your identity in must go. Your desire for earthly love and to be found attractive by earthly men must go and with it your perceptions of how you look, your body type, your hair- which is your vanity. Your identity is not found in how many people you please, in how many people like you, in how many guys find you attractive. Live to make me smile and me alone. Live to impress no one else but me. Everything former must be cut away.
So that is what I did. I shaved my head. It was the most liberating thing I have ever done to this day. I know it sounds crazy and I hope that you will be able to accept it. It is what I felt the Lord urging me to do. He has brought me to a place of complete abandon in Him. He has taken me out of my comfort zone and cultural norms to stretch me beyond what I have been stretched before and to radically follow his voice in ways I would have ignored had I still been living in my comfortable Baptist Christian bubble in Dayton Ohio. This year, he is teaching me, will be about reckless abandon and radical, uncomfortable faith, which will move mountains.
be blessed.
