“Why do you believe that?” It’s one of those questions that growing up in the church, you were always told to be ready to answer but never actually got asked. Days before launch, I stood outside a tattoo shop as the artist, who had just found out about my race, asked me this question. I wasn’t prepared. I started throwing words around, trying to make it seem as if I wasn’t trying to figure out what exactly it was that I believed while simultaneously trying to make sense of it to the artist.
At that time, there were a few things about my faith that I was set in stone on, none of which I ever touched on during our conversation due to how busy I was trying to say the right things in order to not miss this divine appointment. I was afraid my reasoning wouldn’t convince him and more afraid that I would offend him. Post-panic attack, I began thinking of what had really happened in those last minutes. Is it possible that we change the face of our God to make him appealing to those we witness to in relation to the life they are living now? How far can this line be stretched before we reach the point of preaching tolerance to the life they are already living without God, worrying solely about whether or not we will lose our opportunity to convert them if we are not sensitive to their current way of life and losing sight of the goal to simply tell them truth?
This experience and many of the same type that followed taught me one thing. Just because you back up your faith in a way that doesn’t convince someone else doesn’t change the validity of it. I think it comes from the fear that our own story isn’t enough. I think it comes from the fear that someone who is logic-minded can’t be moved by the testimony that shows the power of an emotional God. My story in particular is one of a perspective change from self to servant. The entire view of the world shifts when you begin to see things as me + the Kingdom….and then everything else. However, reasonably living everyday for something you can’t see isn’t the easiest point to get across.
How do you make the Kingdom something so desirable to strive for everyday and reconcile the necessity of present-day belief of the gospel with people who see post-death Heaven as the only benefit of following Jesus? In John 17, this is Jesus’ prayer for His disciples:
13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.
How can we go everyday living as people who are hated by the world? How realistically can we really be in the world and not of the world?
1 John 4:4 – Greater is He who is living in you than he who is living in the world.
When we choose into the life He has for us, we choose into believing that we’re greater than what the world has to offer. In Romans, it says “The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death….And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
We choose freedom. We choose to serve Him and let everything else be a side effect. We choose to tell our stories exactly the way are, all worry aside, and let Him use them for His good.
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (NIV)
Dear Mr. Tattoo artist, I believe in Jesus because I have a spirit that’s not of this world. One that doesn’t crush under the weight of the tragedies and hate of this earth. One that is full of joy, full of purpose and knows that it’s Creator keeps His promises because He makes everything work for my good. One that is hopeful. One that is eternal and believes that this world has already been conquered when He came to die for me. One that has seen miracles that don’t even begin to qualify as coincidences. One that uses its story to show that it has been supernaturally transformed in a way that could give credit only to Someone greater. One who sees this life as me + the Kingdom. And then everything else. Love, Lauren.
