The Heart, Mind and Soul of the Matter

Posted on by Hilarey

When my kids were still at home, we sometimes ate standing at the counter, buffet style, without plates. This was for charcuterie-type meals like chips, veggies, dip, cheese and crackers. It was typically a pre-holiday event so people could come and go. But sometimes, late, and after karate, it was just to get a meal started as we were still pulling food out. It could be a frenzy of laughing, talking, and reaching.

My son told me recently that even if the food itself isn’t comfort food, it is a comfort to him to have a meal this way because of the memory of it. He also said his roommate had no context for a family meal like this because his mom always plated his food.

I’ve done that, too. And I’ve known people irritated by their childhood mealtime because they had to clean their plate, but weren’t in charge of what was on it. So I’ve been thinking about the heart behind the action.

Picture a mom dishing up everyone’s plate. She chooses your portion and sets it before you. She could do it this way for more than one reason.

Maybe:
She wants to see your delight when she places the plate in front of you, and she’s simply helping you.
She is selecting the best cut of meat for you.
She is selecting the best cut of meat for herself.
She is selecting the best cut of meat for your volatile dad, so he’s appeased and everybody might get to finish dinner.
She doesn’t want to clean up after everyone else’s messy attempt to serve.
It is all about control, and she’s trying to make sure you don’t overeat because she thinks you’re fat.
It’s all about insecurity and she wants to remind you that the food comes from her, and her only personality in this season of life is feeding people.
There’s someone greedy at the table who would fish out all of the meat and leave everyone else only broth.
Someone’s hangry at the table, and it just streamlines the meal.
It’s the only thing she is in charge of.
It’s for love and worry that she wants to make sure you eat the right foods, not just white bread.
There is barely enough to go around and she is making sure that you get a fair portion.
Food is scarce, and she’s rationing to fund a second meal.
And maybe, she’s not just sure why her mom served everyone—but she feels like she can’t break tradition.

The thing is, you can only assume her motivation—and whether there is more than one motivation contributing.

This isn’t a post about forgiving moms for our eating disorders.

It’s just to describe why God is after our heart.

We are often very conscious of how our actions look or are perceived by others. But actions can be faked. They can just be a rule or a tradition. Actions don’t tell the entire story.

Just because there is a lack of a sin you can pinpoint and cry out, “There! That thing you did was wrong.” It doesn’t mean wrong wasn’t done.

Actions, Motivations and Iniquity

I’m reading Good Boundaries and Good Byes by Lisa Terkurst, and she writes, “I discovered iniquity points to the character or motivation of the action more than the action itself. So it’s not just what someone does or doesn’t do; it’s what her actions represent.” The author uses this to describe when we cannot really pinpoint something as a sin. More the “nuances of hurtful issues within human relationships that don’t clearly point to sin.”

The same tradition can bring life to one household and oppression to another. Even in the same house, a rule can be life-giving or demeaning. Not every one of my family members had pleasant emotions about those meals at the counter.

What’s the difference? Sometimes the situation or personality of the one who receives, affects it. The person who gets the food put on their plate. But mostly—the difference in how actions affect you is the heart behind it (or the rule and how it’s enforced.)

Anything can be twisted by motivation.

So be careful when giving or receiving advice, or following new parenting trends.

And damage isn’t only a result of a malicious motivation. So many things I did incorrectly as a parent were motivated by fear. Which seemed like it came from love, but it was still tainted because fear isn’t from God. I always want to be cognizant when fear motivates my actions.

And to try to turn over my heart. It isn’t just the sin of murder— it’s also the justification of anger. It isn’t just adultery—it’s the lingering.

Don’t Give Up

In those situations where the heart was sincere but the action still created pain and discord—I think the motivation of the heart is redeeming. I know a mom who asked her kids, “Yes, but… when you look back, can you ever say that I did not love you?”

And even if that question is not given a thoughtful answer, our God cares about our why. That’s not to say obedience isn’t required to follow him. But loving God with your heart, mind and soul comes first. Then, loving your neighbor as yourself follows. And that neighbor interaction has to overflow with sincerity of heart, or it gets weird.

“The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7.

I think there can be dread to give God your heart because you think he‘ll make you change your actions. Our purpose isn’t so much to focus on whether or not mom should plate the food or what does God want me to do? But to let him in. To love him. To be loved by him.

God’s kingdom will not be brought by changing certain actions, voting, laws, force, hostile takeovers or outlawing sin. It is what the Jews wanted when Rome was oppressing them. It’s what many people want now, one world system to throw off the oppression of a different world system.

Neither will God’s name be glorified by a segregated utopia—yes, a holy people, sanctified and set apart—but not living behind a gate hoarding and protecting their resources of joy, love, and prosperity. When I was a child, I used to think Christians should be immediately raptured. I didn’t know why we had to live here. I thought God should just talk to individual hearts and then we should disappear.

God’s kingdom arrives through our internal renewal while we are still mucking around here in the mess. Sanctification comes from turning over our hearts.

God’s motivation

Some see God as punitive: he sent his son as punishment for our sins.

Some view our God as a reconciler: he created a path for us to be reunited to him.

(Actually, I think the difference might originate in Eastern Orthodoxy and western traditions.)

Does it matter though—if one of those statements is more true than the other… so long as you turn from sin and walk the straight and narrow? So long as the actions are “right,” and the food is served correctly?

Well, yes, it might a little, when it comes to trusting him with your heart.

Sonship and Citizenship

Posted on by Hilarey

I remember standing on the deck of a beautiful home in Tahoe for a home group gathering. The leader responded to my compliment about the view, his home, and yard with, “Where God guides, he provides.”

It’s so, so true. God directs us. He opens and closes doors. All good things come down from the Father of Lights. He is the way-maker.

But this was during the time my husband was physically injured. We were losing our barely affordable rental to a thriving real estate “seller’s market,” and we didn’t know where we would be moving. I was unskilled—waiting tables at more than one restaurant—while my husband tried to stand upright again. It was just months after I’d weaned our third baby.

So my whispered reply was, “I wish God would guide me.”

God’s Favor

Casually spoken Christian terms and quotes alienate people more than they glorify God.

There are certain privileges you owe to the structures of this world. Such as, you were born in a country where citizens learn to read. Even though God loved Jacob and hated Esau before they were born it isn’t God’s favor over you that prevented you from being born into disease, famine, prison, or a refugee camp—and someone else into it.

The idea of God’s favor reeks of prosperity doctrine—but I especially dislike it because I hear it when people just want to describe how God approved and enabled their plans.

As lovers of God, we want to do great things for him. So we make plans. And if he aligns the stars and decimals—we tell everyone that we have his “favor.”

Many are the plans of man, but the Lord directs his steps.

And sometimes, he laughs at, scoffs, or taunts the world’s plans. Yeah, possibly even your plans and mine. He rejected Uzzah’s. (A man who likely had good intentions of not letting the Arc of the Covenant fall to the ground…but who wasn’t a priest and therefore was prohibited from touching it.)

It isn’t God’s favor in the form of your success, which proves your sonship, or your citizenship in heaven. Sometimes if things look fantastic for you in this world—it’s just because you are operating well as a part of this world. Or you had a leg up.

Things are just going to be easier if you are born into a society with public services, the ability to own private land, and within an infrastructure for (some) free education. If you are born to an intact family and money, you will have many more options and opportunities than others… and a softer place to land if the stars and decimals don’t align.

Reserve, there are two different kingdoms operating simultaneously—and some principles will help you in both. If you do not cheat on your spouse, they are less likely to leave you (for infidelity, at least.) If you show up on time and work your best, you are less likely to be fired (for laziness, at least.)

But don’t confuse good principles operating under the structure of this world as God‘s favor. Sometimes you do all these things, and you are still abandoned, lose your job, never receive the pay you deserve, have health issues, and cannot provide for the future of those you love.

This is not a reflection of God’s favor on you.

Because not everyone doing well in this world reached success because of honor or adherence to God’s principles. There is a selfish kind of wisdom that will advance you in this life.

And even though God wanted to give Israel prosperity—sometimes they achieved it themselves through oppressive interest rates, enslaving others, buying land from the desperate, and exploiting the immigrant.

I found a Bible Project article article that mentioned, “… in the biblical narrative, prosperity, and wealth are often signs of brutal injustice toward the vulnerable.”

On the other hand, not everyone who adheres to God’s principles will be rewarded on earth. Christians are anticipating a home anda reward yet to come.

Besides, even though all perfect gifts come from him, not all things the world calls “good” are… good.

How #imblessed looks to unbelievers

Don’t use “though none go with me” as an excuse to trample others along your way. It does matter how we look and sound to unbelievers. Paul talked about the way the gift of tongues should be used in the church—stating that if a nonbeliever came in and it was chaotic, “Would he not think you were all mad?”

It is fine to live well here. Defend your right to burn trash on your lawn with your dying breath. Finagle a better interest rate and take your neighbor to court. Just don’t call it “trusting in the Lord,” “God’s favor,” or a “blessing,” and think that it glorifies God.

And stop confusing success in this world as proof heaven’s citizenship.

Is it your fault?

It’s painful when your life looks like you neither adhere to the decent principles of the world nor have tangible gifts and God’s favor. You lose your home, your job, your health. The most obvious question for other believers to ask you is, “Is this pain a result of your sin or your parents?” Just like the disciples asked Jesus regarding a man born blind. Just like Job’s friends accused. It’s easy to imagine the prodigal father questioned all his life’s choices before he ran to embrace his returning son and fell upon his neck.

Remember, all the tangible gifts given here on earth will still burn up with the rest of the temporal things. While we should enjoy them, we should more intently seek the treasures in eternity that can’t be destroyed. The favor you cannot yet see, taste, touch—or post on social media.

Sometimes people leave the faith because their torn garments, fasting and praying, doesn’t bring the good life or the restoration of relationship, that was promised. The candy machine God isn’t the one we should peddle… because it isn’t God’s favor or lack of tribulation that proves sonship. Not when Jesus said if they hated him—they would hate us. Not when he promised we would have to endure troubles.

Hebrews 12:7-8 “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.”

We don’t need to always think of discipline as correction or punishment. Discipline is simply what makes you drag yourself out of bed in the morning. Most of the time, discipline is making the head choice instead of the flesh choice for food, exercise, study and relationships.

Discipline can be a judge—but it can also be a personal trainer.

And I feel like the writer of Hebrews is encouraging the reader with the reminder “in which we all have participated” as confirmation that your tough times, your pain, prove your legitimacy as children of God.

You’re not abandoned. You’re in training.

Praying Naked

Posted on by Hilarey

Even though I only wanted to escape eternal burning and torture, I know my 11 year old conversion was real, because after, I felt compelled to promise to God that I wouldn’t lie anymore. A handful of years later, when I tried to walk away from my faith, I’d actually become so bad at lying that I had to intentionally practice.

I always believed honesty was the best policy: withhold nothing. But truths can lose their significance and feelings change, so it isn’t always wise to unwrap everything. We can give “honesty” just as a way to cut people, with no desire for reconciliation. Because of this, I’ve been thinking of the proverb that calls it wisdom to conceal something, rather than separating close friends.

I know it is partly due to my Enneagram 4 personality to intensely crave authenticity. Sometimes I need to let that go, and grow in this area. Not everything needs to be out on the table all the time.

Because, it isn’t safe to be honest with all people. Sometimes your secret is dismissed as insignificant. Pearls trampled.

Sometimes it’s one-sided. People will expect your vulnerability even though they withhold.

And sometimes, it’s held against you forever. Your honesty will not be forgiven. Picture a doctor who makes a mistake, or the first person to be sorry in a fender bender.

I am as quick to apologize as I am to be honest. And I’ve been told females apologize more. And of course it’s always that question, nature or nurture? When I think about the weird passage in 1st Timothy chapter 2, how a woman should remain quiet—because Adam was formed first and Eve was deceived—I assume women have been apologizing since the fall. Even though man was not deceived (he willfully disobeyed) his first reaction was to cast blame on woman. So our go-to from childhood is, “Sorry about everything, boys. What else can I do to make it easier for you to not sin?”

Joking aside, it isn’t safe to be truthful with all people. But with a warning, admitting that you were wrong is a path to mutual healing when you have actually wronged someone. (If you’ve been wronged, you can heal without them.)

Honesty for honesty’s sake

One thing for sure, our God is not in the business concealing sin without dealing with it. So I definitely don’t mean withholding justice. But that isn’t the same as honesty for honesty’s sake. I heard author Tiffany Bluhm speak this year and she said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”

There was a book I read a few years ago called Three Kings. It talked about the different ways of handling sin in leadership of your church. It compared Saul, David and Absalom. Basically, it said to not touch the Lord’s anointed. To be like David, and let God remove Saul.

I agree with the book because God did remove Saul. But I disagree in that God didn’t keep David silent or Saul’s sins covered while he did it. The book indicates that God should do the exposing. Too often, people have tried to protect the image of God, or the image of church, by hiding things. If you think you need to protect, falsify, or coverup sin in the body—then you’re either the petri dish or the cancer.

I am honest in my blog and fiction writing, even though it bites me sometimes, because I more frequently hear how helpful and healing it is to others. Certainly, more damage has been done in the church by hiding how we really feel and think and act. So, I press on and work through my reoccurring dream connected to writing: I’m in a crowded public place and need to relieve myself, usually, diarrhea. Typically, I’m desperately looking for a private place. Also typically, the only thing available is a widely exposed toilet where everyone can watch. I wake wondering, how much of my crap should I show?

I’m still working that out.

Laying yourself bare

Before I accidentally deleted my blog, a short post with this same name (Praying Naked) was the most popular on my site. I’ve added several thoughts as I’m now more prone to look at things from multiple angles. Ten years ago, when I first wrote it, someone had told me that I should never pray naked… he said it was especially disrespectful doing something base, such as using the toilet. I guess, because of poop.

I bristled right away. But I wasn’t sure why. Women don’t actually have as much luxury as men for privacy. Even sex is more invasive and intrusive. Pregnancy means you share everything, not just your body with another human. Because sometimes you share it with whoever wants to be part of the miracle by touching you. Doctors are always up inside your business. And then when you give birth, your body will be put on a pedestal for others to watch. You’ll be laying on your back so it’s easier for them to see. And during delivery, sometimes, you poop.

While I discussed that warning to not pray on the toilet, my son told me something he’d read. It was you stimulate a heart change if you physically humble yourself before God.

Basically, the point was to kneel when you pray so get the most out of it. As a result, my son said rarely had time to pray, correctly. I guess the infirm would be out of luck.

Here’s the danger for teachers: humans love dogma and a repeatable self-help path. There seems to be a hope in formulas that might bypass the struggle of faith, with zero sacrifice, and with results one can replicate. The person who found that heart change by kneeling might have had a sincere experience. Maybe also did the man who told me to never do something base while talking to God.

But, I’ve had Norovirus. Anyone who’s had that, dysentery or hepatitis has prayed on the toilet.

Even though mankind started off naked, the idea does come from somewhere. There were laws regarding nakedness in the Old Testament. For example, the last verse of exodus 20, warns them not to expose their privates to the temple steps while they walk up them.

I think the point of laws like that were to make us realize who we approach. God Almighty should induce a little fearful awe. Mount Sinai could not be touched without penalty. The law had to come to do that.

It shouldn’t stay there though. We now approach Mount Zion through Christ. You can call out to God, even with a gross body. You do not need to get dressed and move to your knees, be healed from infections, and then stoically place your palms together. You don’t need to get your shit together first.

The ridiculous idea of needing to cover your nakedness to be presentable to God is worse than missionaries trying to decorate their proselytes in their home fashion. Hiding your baseness from God is your own version of fig leaves, of covering up your own sin. There was a fig tree I loved to climb as a girl. But the leaves were itchy—I couldn’t stand them against my skin. There might be different varieties of fig trees, but the thought of covering my nakedness before God stays with me as a second-rate, hydrocortisone option.

Of course, if this intent is misconstrued, some might think I advocate irreverence. Or that we shouldn’t bow before him. I think if we had a clear picture about what was happening during prayer, we wouldn’t even go to our knees. We’d fall to our face.

We should have reverence. Hebrews 5:7 says Jesus’s prayers were answered because of it. But a few chapters before that Hebrews 4:13-16 says no creature is hidden from his sight. All of us are naked and exposed. Nevertheless, he is a high priest who understands our weakness and we are told to draw near with confidence to receive mercy, grace and help.

No creature is hidden from his sight, naked and exposed

It’s silly to withhold anything from him, even the unsightly functions of the human body. A young woman once shared with me that the comment about not speaking to God while you went potty felt so oppressive, it broke her heart. Because, in her busy life, the toilet was the only minute she had alone with God each day. It is interesting that the Bible mentions not even nakedness can separate us from him.

A book that ministered to me a few years ago was the Liturgy Of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren. It includes a pretty visceral prayer:

“Observant Jews use a prayer called the Asher Yatzar, which they recite after using the bathroom. Blessed are You, Hashem our God, King of the universe, Who formed man with wisdom and created within him many openings and many hollows. It is obvious and known before Your Throne of Glory that if even one of them ruptures, or if even one of them becomes blocked, it would be impossible to survive and to stand before You (even for a short period). Blessed are You, Hashem, Who heals all flesh and acts wondrously.”

The most powerful prayer warriors I know don’t worry too much about how to approach the God they dearly love. My two prayer partners arrive often and entitled, knowing God will hear them, trusting their father so much that they don’t need him to do what they ask in order to continue in faith. Often because they were told to pray without ceasing and entitled because they believe that they can boldly approach the throne of grace.


Tradition teaches us to bow our heads and get on our knees. Jesus lifted his eyes. Keep in mind it is the condition of your heart which is important—not yoga poses or deciduous matter on your privates.

Remember who you approach: God Most High. Remember why you approach him: Christ made it possible.

Beyond that, I doubt God is any more fazed by your baseness than impressed with your lovely new outfit.

Just as I am

There is a deep need to be known fully and accepted fully. The possibility of the first and not the second, motivates both unneeded honesty and shame. What we are ultimately searching for though, is to have complete naked vulnerability before God. To pray without any shame or anything covered between you and him.

Sometimes it just seems more real when the exposure and acceptance comes from others.

Just make sure it is the right amount of exposure to the right person. Because, I don’t see God’s solution to our sin as returning to the garden nakedness when we go to heaven. Not everything needs to be laid bare to everyone.

Even though nakedness and the tree of life started off our story—the next time we eat of the tree we will be covered in white robes. Figurative or literal? I don’t know, but lift up your eyes and do not be ashamed. Your nakedness is fully seen, known and accepted. He’s got you covered.

The Portugues Camino de Santiago

Posted on by Hilarey

I was speaking to my mom about getting older yesterday, and we decided it isn’t something the young can handle. Only the experienced can do it.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I spent the weekend in Hailey, ID with friends. When we were visiting our favorite spot by the river to soak our feet one night, we noticed a much older woman.

While we could see that she was mature, the way she moved was uncommonly spry. How she navigated her phone to take a video of her family, the way she stood up and down, the exuberance in her voice, and the sureness of her feet on the rocks belied her apparent age.

So my girlfriend said something like, “Excuse me, if you don’t mind me asking… What is your name, and how old are you? Because I think I want to be you when I grow up.”

Betty is 92.

We asked her what her secret was. Betty leveled her gaze at us and quickly answered, “Say ‘yes’ whenever anyone asks you to go on a hike.”

My next hike

I turn fifty in six weeks, and part of my celebration is to walk El Camino with this same friend, one of my prayer partners, Angela. I fly to Portugal on Monday and we’ll start our trek from Porto. Over the course of two weeks, we’ll walk to Santiago, Spain carrying what we need on our backs.

So, while I have had a handful of blog posts started, I’ve been too preoccupied to reign in the thoughts or make them readable. For the next few weeks—if I blog here—it won’t have audio. I’ve been spending my writing time on writing a collection of prayers for us.

If you want to follow us

I will be contributing posts to her blog to keep everyone updated on our location and pictures. You can follow our pilgrimage/adventure on Just Another Trail.

Check her blog out to see the music video we put together. “Hil, you’re growing old so fast.”

My Elevator Pitch

Posted on by Hilarey

I remember when I first moved to the Boise area. I didn’t work outside the home, or know anyone, so at church I tried to introduce myself. Every week.

In the repetition, it started to feel like an elevator pitch. An almost memorized teaser summing up my reason for living, moving, my hobbies, and experiences. Basically, all my labels—in the hopes of a followup question of interest. It became tedious. I just wanted to be known already.

In a few years, I had community. And when I could say that people knew me, my paradigm changed. I became an empty nester. I won’t go into all the details, but many things like work and hobbies, which defined “me” also fell away with my job of full-time-mom-with-kids-in-the-home.

I was without an elevator pitch, except to say, “I’m in pain because I don’t have labels anymore.”

I began searching and grasping to organize my faith. I couldn’t find the book I needed the most, so I wrote it. (Some of you have read it in draft form.) Essentially, it was a way for me to process all the identities and labels that I had worn over my life. And how at some point they were all retired, made meaningless, or became unwanted…

I’d forgotten this until recently, as the conversation about identity keeps coming up. My midlife memoir was partly about holding all labels loosely and accepting only the unique identity that God has for you. It came with a subtitle message that a diverse community was better than matching identities.

Are the following labels, identity, or both?
Gay Christian, divorced Christian, vegetarian Christian, freedom-loving American Christian. What about Christian-first language: A Christian widow, a Christian worship leader, a Christian with trauma? What if you’re bothered by the descriptor “Christian” because of the Salem Witch Trials and the Crusades?

The goal of labels

It’s more than wanting to be known. I think labels are an attempt at grasping to see where you fit and to find your people. Name the enemy. Name the comrade.

Maybe they’re even to feel fully resolved about who you are. Summed up. A finished work before your time. So we can forgo the bother of sanctification and change.

I don’t fully understand all the nuances of Side A, B, X, or Y, so I hope it doesn’t appear as though I have a secret agenda in arguing against the concept of labeling your sexual identity. My context comes from the use of labels like Mom, homeschooler, really-cool-job-title, wife.

And let’s be honest, we can wear an identity we never label. Sometimes our identity is our experiences, trauma, vocation or lens merely because we bring it into every part of life—even though we don’t claim the descriptor in our elevator pitch. It consumes our every thought.

So, while the warning applies that all labels can become identities which supersede your identity in Christ, it is a little more complicated in some conversations, like LGBTQ labels.

I believe that complication stems from our earthly “purpose” to be mated as understood in the biblical mandate to “be fruitful and multiply,” and is somewhat influenced by both modern romance (you complete me) and the purity movement (virgins earn blissful married sex.)

Christians have deified marriage with verbiage like “Marriage is the only piece of the garden that survived the fall,” indicating that a union of two people is the purpose for which we were created, and a little taste of heaven.

So, with the cultural push for Christians to find an earthly love story as a necessary part of their walk with God—gay Christians are inhibited from fully bowing down to this idol with body, mind and desire. Which could be freeing in reality, but in the context of church conversation, I understand why some would want the clarification, “Hey, while we all have to lay down our will and submit to sexual purity as part of sanctification… there is a unique lens for how I experience doing life in a community of Christians. And I need you to know that it is going to influence how I process and receive everything from your statement of faith to your Valentine’s Day dinner advertisement.”

Of course, LGBTQ isn’t the only label that some Christians might need you to know. My church recently had a couples’ progressive dinner. For couples. To meet other couples. Ignorance makes a very narrow set of pews available to divorced Christians.

Look around the sanctuary on Mother’s Day. There is likely someone who flees from the “Mommas, your ministry is the most important one, i.e.: the salvation of a woman is found through childbearing” sermon in tears. Couples grow weary of explaining they aren’t using birth control even though they might not introduce themself as a barren Christian.

If someone views life and service so differently that they can’t interact inside your church without clarification, let them share their label so you can stop hurting them.

Allowing someone to add an adjective to their identity might help remove the shame of hiding. It certainly encourages a second person to share their story. Not so all the gay people can find each other, or the homeschool moms can start a Bible study solely focused around their unique struggles—but so the shame of the struggle doesn’t fester. I wish someone had shared more openly while my kids were younger. I wish they’d heard you could be both same sex attracted and a follower of Christ.

I wish the conversation wasn’t attached to the political election but only to eternal election.

I know that just as prayer can be used for gossip, sometimes confession, or sharing your story, can be an invitation to see how receptive the other person is in joining you in your sin. But more often it feels like there is no safe way to bring light into your darkness. Apparently, there are no parameters (no perfect garden) to prevent all future sinning. Because it also could alienate someone into sin if you communicate, “tamp that down,” through the words, “You shouldn’t be a gay Christian. Just be a Christian Christian, like me.”

Although, that is the goal: to become a child of God without a label. To not look within ourselves to define who were are, but to be image bearers. If our purpose is to reflect God and we are a mirror shining his light into the world, then we want to have the most unmarked surface as possible. (Even though he created us intentionally unique.) There are many names for God, so I have considered that we can be two things at once as well. But it might be worth meditating or contemplating on this if it smarts your pride to let the focus be wholly Him.

All labels will change and lose value. Family members die and you can lose your status as child, spouse, parent. Jobs change. Fluidity. Even though we are sexual beings, not everyone will have sex up to the day they die. I doubt I’ll feel sexual desire when I can no longer feed or wipe myself. If I’n still blogging, I’ll let you know when I get there.

How do you know your label has become an identity?

One of my prayer partners told me, “Identity is more than a characteristic trait. It is who you are intrinsically.” If you want to know whether you have let your label become an identity, see how long you can go without thinking about it or mentioning it.

How many conversations do you have that aren’t about your kids? How many people can you meet without telling them your job title? On the other side, how many days can you go without mentioning what Christ means to you?

You can become just as fixated on the things that you are “not.” Otherwise, the romance book and movie industry wouldn’t profit so much from people who wish they were someone’s beloved. The makeup and plastic surgery industry wouldn’t be able to sell youth. You can live in a space completely obsessed with how broken you are. How much you are not.

Often you won’t realize your identity was an idol until you lose it, or cannot use the name. If the ground shifts underneath your feet without that label, you have built your life on sand. If you are afraid of losing who you are without the description, then you have chosen a false god.

And some of us need to throw that label as far from ourselves as possible. I know my mom said that she never wanted cuss language in her life as a way to differentiate who she was after she became a believer. Cussing was like an identity or label that marked a lifestyle outside of Christ.

A mystery known only to God

I want to share a quote by Elizabeth Elliot which I found in Being Elizabeth Elliott by Ellen Vaughn. It says, “The Christian realizes that his true identity is a mystery known only to God… And that any attempt at this stage on the road of discipleship to define himself, is bound to be blasphemous and destructive of that mysterious work of God, forming Christ in him by the power of the Holy Spirit.“

In our attempt to define ourselves, name the enemy, find the friend, join the club—I think it’s worth reflecting on how Jesus renames Simon to Peter when he calls him in John 1:42.

“Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas’ (which means Peter).” It isn’t the first time in the Bible. Abram is renamed Abraham. Jacob becomes Israel. Saul is changed to Paul.

What if who you are, your label, name, destiny, identity is not for you to name?

Consider Revelation 2:17 “…and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.” I suspect whatever names, job titles, identities or labels you claim now will be renamed just like when God called Simon, Jacob, Abram and Saul.

Coming to terms with a shifting identity is important. So is walking forward in willingness to let it be stripped away. But some are not there yet. I think not letting people judge you for how you handle new moons, sabbath festivals, or refusing meat because of weakness goes both ways. (If you are not in a place to exhort) then do not judge those who need to choose their labels, or those who need to violently disassociate themselves from one.

But when you’re ready to step into uncharted wilderness and grow, let God pick yours.