I am dabbling in this faith business. I'm not merely dabbling in my faith, but I'm dabbling in writing about it. For a long time I haven't really written about faith and spirituality because it feels too vast, too complex and beautiful a thing to narrow down to a sound bite or bumper sticker. In fact those very things make me cringe, and I don't ever want to come across like I've got it all figured out in a clever phrase that can be neatly printed on a Christian T-Shirt. I believe in Jesus and his life changing message, but I never wore a WWJD bracelet - because "What Would Jesus Do?" - not wear that tacky bracelet for starters.
I grew up in church and am so thankful for my introduction to Jesus there and in my family. But, I didn't think the Jesus I had met and was getting to know in church would do a lot of the things "the church" would do. I was always comfortable with the message of Jesus, but not always comfortable with the message of Christians around me who focused on how otherness was bad, and different was to be kept that way. I'm not a Christian just to drive to church every Sunday in my car with a Jesus fish on it. I'm not a Christian to protect my kids from the evils of public school or R-rated movies. I'm not a Christian to vote Republican or protest abortion clinics, and I'm certainly not a Christian to lord my superior theology or worldview over anybody.
The Jesus I know told me to love, and let him take care of the rest. He told me in fact that the world would know us by our love. The truth is, for a long time I haven't wanted to write about being a Christian because love is not what the world knows us for at all unfortunately. I didn't want to be lumped in and stereotyped as the kind of Christian that was known for everything but love.
The great work of defining what my faith means to me as an adult has actually been to separate culture from Christ. I'm wanting to follow Jesus instead of just his followers; to listen to the actual message not just the messengers. I'm working on me and my own relationship with God, and to separate that relationship from a religion that doesn't represent that relationship very well. I'd like to talk about that a little bit in this space, because I think it's a conversation worth having, and a huge part of what it means to me to live life with adventurous intention. I hope you'll explore that with me here, and I hope we can do it with love and respect and the understanding that no one, starting with me, has it all figured out.
I shared a video last week that you all seemed to love, so here's another one about the kind of faith I want to have. I want to have a faith that drops keys and puts down stones. I couldn't have said it better, so I'll let Glennon...
photo credit: DylanHartmann.com via photopin cc
