So, yes it’s
true, we’re camping in Ireland. I
can’t believe the blessing that we have to get to come out to this place that
we weren’t even scheduled to visit.
In spite of the rain and the “typical summer cold” as were told, it has
been an absolutely beautiful week.
It has been a nice change to escape the sticky, sweaty heat of Central
America and break out the hoodies and sweatshirts from the bottoms of our packs
that we thought we would never use.
Change is nice sometimes.
Whenever we come
together as a squad, it’s always fun to celebrate as a community the month we
just had. However this time, all I
wanted was to just be alone for a few days. I know this doesn’t come as a huge shock to anyone that
knows me and my personality, but on our first full day in Ireland when everyone
was jumping off the walls with excitement, I found myself drifting toward the
back. Normally I just claim that
as my personality, but there were a reason for withdrawing this time. There was a vision needing to be cast.
As a squad, we’re
fairly bold people, but over the years, so many insecurities have been heaped
on us that our natural boldness is often silenced. Let me reword that.
Our natural boldness for sports, or fashion, or music, or even
relationships is still there, but our natural boldness for God (which should be
the same, because it’s…natural) and His work is often lost somewhere in that
transition. I had a picture or
idea run through my head last night that will bring some clarity to this
thought…
If you walk into
a kindergarten class and ask all the kids to raise their hands if they are an
artist, I’d be willing to say that the 
majority, if not all, would waive their
hand in the air with excitement.
With this, you ask all the kids to draw a picture of their dad and to
take it home and show it to him. A
good dad will look at this drawing and see this blue stick figure with pink
eyes and abnormally long legs and smile with the words, “It looks just like me.” Now you do the same thing in a 3rd
or 4th grade class and it’s pretty safe to say that the number of
artists would be cut in half. By
the time you get into the high school classes, you may have trouble finding one
person that would claim himself or herself an artist and draw a picture of
their dad. Why is this?
At some point
another voice enters in and even though dad says it looks just like him,
someone else tells us our drawing isn’t real art. It’s a fairly safe assumption that they aren’t actually
worse of an artist than they were in kindergarten. It’s just that somewhere along the line they’re convinced
that their picture isn’t good enough.
Somewhere in life we lose the freedom to just draw our dad because being
an artist just isn’t our gift. At
least that’s what we hear. That’s
what we’re
told.
Meanwhile, we
have a father in heaven that is screaming, “It looks just like me! YOU look just like me!” Sure the world may tell you you’re
using the wrong colors or drawing the legs abnormally long, but when did we
start listening more to those around us and less to Dad? WE are the picture of God right now and
we have natural gifts that are paralyzed by fear or silenced by criticism. Where is that freedom for us to draw
the best picture we can no matter what our “gifting” is and present it WITHOUT
shame to a Dad that is enthralled with everything we do?
The Bible even
starts off in the first chapter saying, “God created man in His own image, in
the image of God He created him; male AND female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). Was there a need to say that three
different ways in one verse? That
depends on whether or not we actually believe it. Draw your picture…
