Odd:\u00a0 <\/i>strange or unusual : different from what is normal or expected<\/i><\/p>\n
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There is no certainty; there is only adventure.\u00a0 Roberto Assagioli<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n My friend Adele describes fundamentalism as holding so tightly to your beliefs that your fingernails leave imprints on the palm of your hand\u2026 I think she\u2019s right. I was a fundamentalist not because of the beliefs I held but because of how I held them: with a death grip. It would take God himself to finally pry them out of my hands. (p.17-18) Rachel Held Evans, \u201cEvolving in Monkey Town\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, today we\u2019re going to talk about our faith. The Bible says it\u2019s impossible to please God without it, but what does faith look like?\u00a0 More accurately, what type of faith is most pleasing to God<\/a>?<\/p>\n I ended yesterday\u2019s post with this thought on contractual VS covenatal (relationships founded on a covenant between both parties) relationships:<\/p>\n I believe the type of relationship Jesus wants with us, is one that releases our need to \u201cget it right\u201d or be \u201cbiblical\u201d, so that we can to get swept up in the adventure that is doing life with Lover of our Soul. \u00a0As we <\/i>learned yesterday<\/i><\/a>,\u00a0getting our sense of worth from anything but Jesus is idol worship so today and tomorrow we\u2019re going to rethink what does it mean to be a tribe of women who put our faith in Jesus.\u00a0 Does it mean having the right beliefs and Christian-ese answers, or does it mean being a woman committed to the journey of knowing him, even if our assumptions are questioned and our expectations are left unmet?<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The summer of 2001 Jesus did not meet my expectations<\/em>. My faith was tested.\u00a0 I began facing my doubts, and my life-source slowly shifted from the rightness of my beliefs to Jesus.\u00a0 I gave up my need for certainty so that I could fully lean into the adventure of faith needed to be an unwed mother surrounded by a school of urban ministers.<\/p>\n But I\u2019m getting ahead of myself\u2026<\/p>\n It all started romantic relationships.\u00a0 The first was with a man I gave virginity to as a misguided Missionary-dater.\u00a0 The other was with a boy who loved Jesus and loved me, but still broke my heart.<\/p>\n The autumn before I met my husband and began wrestling with my doubts, I was recovering from a toxic relationship with an older man who I tried to \u201cwin to the Lord\u201d by giving him my virginity\u00a0 (yes,\u00a0 I was that delusional in my effort to be the BEST CHRISTIAN EVER<\/a>). After that failed mission,\u00a0 I swore off dating and told Jesus in a teary journal entry that I was his girl from now on. \u201cLord, I\u2019m not dating anyone else until you give me the ok. I\u2019m all yours. Here\u2019s my heart. \u201d I think I even sang \u201cDraw Me Close To You\u201d for added umph<\/em>!<\/p>\n A month later, I met my husband in New Orleans during Mardi Gras on a short-term missions trip. After a meet-cute<\/a> that Kirk Cameron would totally put in one of his cheesy Christian movies, we returned to our respective homes\u00a0 (Him, Illinois.\u00a0 Me, Texas).\u00a0\u00a0 A couple of weeks into our budding long-distance romance, we broached, \u201ccourting\u201d\u2014 the trendy \u201cI Kissed Dating Goodbye\u201d fad for young\u00a0 \u201con fire\u201d evangelicals.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, I don\u2019t date so unless we\u2019re heading towards marriage, we should probably end things now\u2014you know before we get too attached\u201d, my then boyfriend, now husband, said late one Wednesday night.<\/p>\n I\u2019m such a girl; I actually swooned on the other end of the line. How Godly\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cMe too!\u00a0 I\u2019m dating Jesus!\u00a0 That is until he brings me the right man, of course.\u201d I exclaimed,\u00a0 because you know that type of piety is a ten on the Christian girl hotness meter.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, what should we do?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n After praying together on the phone, we decided to take Friday through Sunday off from talking or emailing; we\u2019d fast, pray, and seek the counsel of our mentors. On Sunday we\u2019d share our \u201cimpressions from the Lord\u201d and make a decision then.<\/p>\n I wanted to honor Jesus and of course, we have this contract where he wouldn\u2019t let me fall for someone who wasn\u2019t \u201cthe one\u201d so, I \u201cJesus-girled\u201d that discernment process up. I prayed the proper verses on asking, seeking, knocking.\u00a0 I tried to delight myself in the Lord\u00a0 with Hillsongs and Daryll Evans.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t touch a single cup of coffee or Hershey\u2019s chocolate bar all weekend\u2014BRUTAL for a college student with papers due the following week. Then, I called my friends and mentors to ask for feedback or prayers.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course y\u2019all should do it!\u201d they said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s going to be an urban minister and you\u2019re so gifted. Y\u2019all will be an anointed couple!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes! Date him, marry him, make little super-spiritual babies with him!\u201d they cheered.<\/p>\n I went into that DTR, with all the chastity and righteousness of a side-hug, with my certainty that I checked off every item on the Christian to-do list to get my way, and \u201cwith a peace in my heart\u201d about the whole thing\u2014 courting, ministry together, marriage, super-spiritual babies and all.<\/p>\n My husband had a similar conclusion from his \u201cMan of God\u201d checklist, so that April evening we\u00a0 made our intentions to get engaged and marry within the year (preferable before we \u201cburn\u201d ) .<\/p>\n In July he broke up with me\u2014over the phone.<\/p>\n And hell hath no fury like a scorned saint.<\/b><\/p>\n When \u201cthe one\u201d broke up with me\u2014 I flipped out! I was confident God gave me a false \u201cpeace\u201d only to cut the ground from underneath my feet.<\/p>\n For days, I prayed, \u201chow can I trust you, Lord?\u201d<\/p>\n I was no longer certain of my faith or my God. Do you see how I got my life from my beliefs?\u00a0 Faith in Jesus meant\u00a0 being certain of what I believed, doing the right things, and pleasing a false picture of God.\u00a0 But Jesus wanted a covenant with me, so he kept in my face.\u00a0 He kept waking me up at night with Scriptures and songs about his goodness and great love for me. The words \u201ccovenant\u201d and \u201crelationships not religion\u201d were in all the sermons or late-night cry fests with Christian friends. The following months Jesus would give me space and opportunity to doubt his very existence, his goodness, and his teachings.\u00a0 Those were hard months. I regularly threw my bible across the room because nothing made sense anymore!\u00a0 He didn\u2019t look good, or like a very present help in time of need, or even that he was working my heartbreak out for his good.<\/p>\n My Christian friends\u2019 began to irritate me with their naivete and optimism. There was no one safe to ask the hard questions.<\/strong><\/p>\n So, I ran to men to ease my holy discomfort.\u00a0 I sought out the grubby physical touch of beer smelly frat boys to try to ignore Jesus\u2019 divine prodding. He was saying, \u201ccome on, you gave me your heart\u2026let\u2019s process this together.\u201d\u00a0 And I was saying, \u201cHells no, Lord.\u00a0 You caused me to question the goodness of your plan for my life.\u00a0 You are now unsafe!\u201d<\/p>\n Jesus and I did this dance of doubt until I found myself leaning up against my bathroom door staring at a positive pregnancy test with MTV blaring in the background. Only, then did I let Jesus in with his unmistakable love, his teachings on gathering me up like a mother hen or in this world I\u2019ll have trouble but take heart for he has overcome the world. Those sentimental songs he\u2019d been serenading me with for months filled that space and then he blew my mind by revealing the true source of my pain\u2026 I had a skewed picture of God. It wasn\u2019t the disappointments or the lack of rigid expectations but, the fear of being in covenant with a capricious evil God that kept me running.\u00a0 The kind\u00a0 of God that gives a girl recovering for sexual abuse and a sleazy virginity sacrifice,\u00a0 a \u201cpeace\u201d about dating a really decent Christian guy and then lets that guy break up with her.<\/p>\n But, that picture of God doesn\u2019t look like Jesus. And that\u2019s another story and an another adventure.<\/p>\n Which I\u2019ll save for tomorrow\u2019s Campfire Conversation, \u201cFriend, what is your picture of God?\u201d<\/p>\n But, I wonder how many of us view our faith in terms of certainty like I did when I was \u201con fire\u201d for the Lord? Do you feel your faith in Jesus is only as strong as you are feel certain about your beliefs? When I let myself doubt Jesus on that bathroom floor, things got really real between Jesus and me. There\u2019s so much benefit to doubting and destroying our idols of certainty\u2014it give us space to get salty, wild, angry, and real with our Lord.<\/a> I think it\u2019s a bit strange and unusual to force a living, dynamic relationship into a set of doctrinal rules and regulations? \u00a0Isn\u2019t it odd to get our lives from the certainty of our beliefs?\u00a0 It would seem to me that Jesus enjoys a good theological conversation.\u00a0 He welcomes an honest push-back.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t want us to check our brains in at the door! Look at his ministry!\u00a0 Some of his best teachings came when someone with tough questions stood up and said something like, \u201cteacher what do you make of this seeming inconsistency?\u201d or \u201cHow does this work in light of that\u201d. My favorite invitation from the Lord is found in\u00a0 Isaiah when God beautifully calls us to process our doubts within the context of covenant with him:<\/p>\n \u201cCome now, let us reason[<\/sup><\/b>a<\/a>]<\/sup> together,<\/b> says the Lord: Ladies, do you see this?\u00a0 He wants our minds. We serve a God who isn\u2019t put off by our intellect, he\u2019s thrilled when we activate it to know him better.<\/p>\n But most of all, he wants our hearts and hearts are bloody!\u00a0 They\u2019re messy and they\u2019re vulnerable.\u00a0 So, our faith is GOING TO BE MESSY!<\/p>\n Girlfriends, come and ask the hard questions<\/strong><\/p>\n This tribe of women we\u2019re forming here\u2014we\u2019re wrestlers.\u00a0 We\u2019re willing to fight through the hard.\u00a0 We\u2019re not afraid to doubt. We hold tightly to Jesus and let go of our beliefs.\u00a0 We do this because we love Jesus more than we love knowledge.\u00a0 <\/b>We do this because we know healthy relationships allow for doubt and push back. Jesus is safe y\u2019all.\u00a0 He\u2019s not shocked off his throne by our questions!<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t always feel safe to me, though. I was pretty afraid of him when I found out I pregnant, unwed and a former \u201cbest Christian ever\u201d.\u00a0 I was afraid he would abandon me because I failed, I went back to the sin I repented of in that tear-stained journal, but tomorrow I\u2019ll share with you the beautiful Jesus-looking picture of God that completely renewed my thinking.<\/p>\n Until then ladies, I wish you incredible courage to ask Jesus one hard question. I wish you incredible patience to listen even if it\u2019s uncomfortable and I wish strength to keep challenging our Jesus\u2014he can take it, in fact, he welcomes it.<\/p>\n Shalom,<\/p>\n![\"Oddlifeninepost\"](\"https:\/\/oshetablogs.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/10\/oddlifeninepost.jpg\")
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\nthough your sins are like scarlet,
\nthey shall be as white as snow;
\nthough they are red like crimson,
\nthey shall become like wool.<\/p>\n