Most of my life, I wore my faith like a cozy jacket of tightly woven threads. It seemed to fit well and was comfortable. When a cold breeze would blow I’d pull my jacket close and it kept me warm. I felt safe.

But always there was a craving for something more. Like catching a whiff of something wonderful but not being able to track it down. There was this longing, a craving to be more. My heart was not content to wear this jacket.

So my heart turned against me and started to pull the loose threads of my jacket. One by one until it was dismantled. My heart soared at the freedom and knew it was tracking down what it had only ever caught fleeting glimpses of before, but I felt cold with out my jacket; naked and vulnerable.

I sorted through the threads. Many were discarded and useless to me now, but I held on to a handful that were so brilliant and true that I wonder how I ever just wore them on the outside. I wanted to weave them into my core. My heart had sought them out and now was desperate hold them close. To be saturated by them not merely clothed in them.

I wore my Christianity on the outside. Acted the right way, spoke the right way, but my heart cried for more. No longer can I wear it. It doesn’t fit and it’s full of holes. So I have to figure out how to “be” it.

I must confess I really don’t know how to “be” a Christian. I was only trained how to act like one. Now that the jacket is off I’m faced with the stark reality that I am saturated with self not Christ. I don’t look like Him with out my jacket. My Christ-likeness can be shed as easily as yesterday’s clothes.

The process of “being” is slow and arduous and it’s scary to be with out that jacket some days. But I can never go back. I don’t want to go back. I’d rather muddle my way through learning how to “be”.

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A question for rhetoric (but not a rhetorical question): you know what i haven’t felt in the longest while?

the flutter of firsts that unfurls from the inside into feverish fits of rapture. mmmmm… the flirtation that buds and builds and leads to wishful thoughts of a first and spectacular kiss. the skin out of control, sensing, feeling, wanting everything in ways that are incomprehensible.

I just… can’t remember… when i last knew that.

 

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