It’s pretty easy to learn Christianese.
Learn the right words, and you can convince people you’re a spiritual giant.
Heck, you can convince yourself.
A month or so ago when the Lord revealed that I was speaking Christianese and not from the Spirit, it was like I realized I was eating spam and not cheesecake.
I had to spit that out, real quick.
This month in Malaysia, we homeschool our contact’s children and teach English. Those things only take from 1 to 4 hours a day. The rest of the day is ours to do whatever we please.
That’s a lot of time to think.
So I started asking the Lord what I’m supposed to be learning in this season, this month, in Malaysia.
I was confused and honestly frustrated when he told me, "Intimacy with me."
My Christianese red flag went up immediately. I’ve grown up in the church and I’ve heard pastors use the word intimacy and God in the same sentence before. That’s about the time I put my fingers in my ears and starting singing, “la, la, la.”
I was a little frustrated because I felt like the Lord laid it all out for me.
I was given a new team to propel me into this next season.
I was given a laid back month to think and process.
It’s all there.
I was on the edge of a cliff. The Lord provided all the things I needed to get me to this place of intimacy with him. I just had to jump.
“Jump.”
The Lord was calling me to jump.
Not in a forceful way.
But in a Daddy-confident-in-his-daughter’s-ability-to-swim kinda way.
But what’s at the bottom?
What if I slip and tumble off?
What if it’s the wrong cliff?
I’ve been having lots of dreams recently, and in one of the latest ones, I’m at a lake. There’s a sign that says, “No swimming. Fish bite.” But somehow I fall in. I freak out about falling into a lake with human biting fish. When I fall in, I realize the sign lied. There were no human biting fish. I remember seeing my legs wading in crystal clear water, almost as if it really happened and I was just seeing it as a memory. All that fear and hesitation, for nothing, nothing bad was going to happen to me when I jumped. Only refreshing, cool water was waiting for me.
I felt the Lord’s comfort as he lovingly repeated, “Jump.”
And I did.
To have a real, active, and hungry relationship with the Father, you don’t have time for crap holding you back.
I stayed up all night one time last week, writing down everything that ever hurt me. Anything that left an adverse scar. The silliest thing from third grade, to the more recent, more fresh scars. I read through the list, and asked the Lord to reveal the lies that those events made me believe. The burdens they made me unnecessarily carry.
And I gave them up.
See, some of them, especially the more recent ones were like big, soft, scabs. One brush close to the area of the wound, and the scab came off, and it started bleeding again. Never allowed to heal. Only developing into a worse scar as time went on.
Me wearing my scabs like hipsters wear plaid and beanies, was preventing me from intimacy from the Lord.
You ever try telling a hipster, that they’re a hipster? They’re like, "No, I’m not."
When clearly, they are.
Teammates tried telling me, and I in my heart of hearts I knew, that wounds of my past were holding me back from this depth that the Lord had for me. But I said, "No, they’re not."
Why have a scab just sit there, only to be reopened over and over when there is someone who helps the scabs heal?
The Lord is healing my scabs.
The deep stuff.
The heart stuff.
Father, heal my heart.
And that’s only the first part of this new discovered intimacy.
Man, am I excited for each new day walking with the Big Guy.
You make me come alive.
