My faith makes me uncomfortable. Very, very uncomfortable.
This is something that has been on my mind since the moment I started experiencing change.
I am now halfway through the race, and the amount of change I have gone through has been unreal. My heart has been broken. My fears have been turned into praises. My old convictions that I plain out ignored have been paths of healing and freedom. I’ve seen a lot of darkness and a lot of light peaking through the crevices. I am not the same as I was in September.
And that’s really really uncomfortable.
I loved my life in America, I have beautiful people there who support and love me as fully as they can. To be honest, I really liked going out with my friends on the weekends. I really liked gossiping about people who rubbed one of us the wrong way. I really liked keeping up with all things pop culture. I liked flirting with boys and pretending that I was oblivious to others feelings. I really really liked materialism (oof). I really liked a lot of things that people my age like and thought that if I “had a relationship with Jesus” (i.e. reading my bible once a week and attending church on Sundays) that I could live in this world and truly believed that I could be fulfilled by it.
But I really love Jesus.
And that’s uncomfortable.
For me, loving Jesus is it. Loving Jesus is like when you hear the perfect song at the exactly right time. It’s like in the movies when 2 lovers are reunited at last and you can feel the love they are experiencing in your very heart. Loving Jesus is realizing you can’t hear him when you’re drunk or high or even willfully giving in to things you shouldn’t and not hearing His voice is like drowning in the ocean and you simply can’t give it up. Loving Jesus is being desperate for His presence, so desperate that your life is consumed by seeking Him.
The most beautiful thing about that is when you seek Him, you find Him. He’s not hiding.
Loving Jesus is seeing others as His beloved, the hardest and most phenomenal thing to experience. Loving Jesus is looking heavenward and seeing all the earthly things that gave you anxiety fade away because you are looking into the face of the Prince of Peace. Literally the bearer of all peace! Loving Jesus is the most life shattering thing I have ever experienced. It’s looking at your life and seeing every way you messed up, every person you hurt, every poor decision that had a consequence on others or yourself and realizing that you aren’t it. You are not enough and by yourself it won’t work out.
Sometimes, loving Jesus looks like standing on a rooftop in Thailand, crying your eyes out because this is too much. This life that I’ve been called to is too overwhelming. Then you feel His presence and you know that even though you just threw a temper tantrum to the living God, you are still loved all the way to your core.
And that is perplexing and spectacular and uncomfortable.
Sharing that I feel this way about Jesus is uncomfortable, and I wish it wasn’t.
During our debrief a few weeks ago, we stayed at an advertised “party hostel”. The people who stayed there were expecting to see (and I quote the rules page posted on our door) “drunk, loud, naked people” but instead got to hear us worshipping on our 3rd floor common area every night. And guess what…
They would stay!
They would stay, drinking beers and smoking cigarettes, through hours of worship. They sat down. They asked questions. They experienced a baptism. They were told the gospel, saw how crazy it was, and felt comfortable enough to stay. They saw something they didn’t understand, but they saw that it was GOOD, and they stayed.
The gospel isn’t butterflies and rainbows. It’s suffering. It’s dying to your flesh every.single.day. It’s not a pretty thing, but it’s a beautiful thing. It’s something that I can’t fully understand and honestly can’t handle understanding.
Halfway through the race my faith still makes me uncomfortable. Living in the unknown makes me uncomfortable. Not understanding the will and ways of the Father is uncomfortable. But I can confidently say that I am comfortable in knowing I am loved and pursued by the creator of the universe, and through keeping my eyes on Him I will be fully satisfied.
Jesus is everything. It’s so simple and we make it so complex. Praying prayers of full surrender and finding comfort in uncomfortable. I hope everyone reading this understands the true joy that is found when our focus is on the one who loves us most. I hope you fall madly in love with the Lord, it’s what He deserves.
If anyone reading this wants to have a deeper conversation about what it means to love and be loved by Jesus, please please text me, email me, DM me, anything!! I’m starting to reach out to people back home only to encourage them by speaking of Jesus (inspired by Pauls letters to the churches!). I would really love nothing more to continue this conversation with you!
With love,
Syd<3
Also my number is 469-401-5473 (I WANNA TALK!) and a song that is speaking into this season is Simplicity by Rend Collective!
