Saturday, May 30, 2009

An honest post.

I feel like blogs are statements to the world declaring some revelation or raging tangent to others; showing how great you are about figuring out life. My soul sits uncomfortably as I type this. I am by no means in the right mind to impress you, nor am I prepared to tell you some spiritual and put together answer to my questions tonight. I come to the table very human, searching for an array of vocabulary to articulate my struggle.

When I sit and pity about my uncertainty in my faith and the world around me, I can’t help but see so many different portrayals of faith. I see all extremes and everything in between. I see beauty and strength. I see wrong and weaknesses. And in that split second that my mind finds labels and slaps them onto what my mind sees to be faith, I get overwhelmed in feeling the need to choose. Do I need to be an evangelical who votes Republican and passes out tracks with the steps to salvation? Should I be the liberal kind of Christian who fights for human rights and sees that the poor have food at night? Should I spend all day in a prayer room praying for revival?

These questions flood my mind tonight as I realize my condition. I have tucked away sermons and teachings in my head, kept things leaders have said, engraved doctrine into my brain. I have seen truth on both extremes in my journey, and I find myself in an uncomfortable in between. In some aspects, in time I have become someone that I never deemed to be good. In another way, I am more liberated and understanding of the gospel than before. I am not satisfied here because I know I am not where I need to be. And in my human and categorial thinking, the only way I seem to find in moving forward right now is choosing between two paths that claim to reach the same goal. My logic can’t rid truths from one for the other, or vice versa. Both shine a different light on Jesus, portraying him as a man standing for different things, like two different people. But really, who is this man named Jesus?

I know I sound confused. And sure, there is some of that. But in the end, as I fight this “good fight of faith,” my heart yearns to be valued for the person that I am more than the doctrine I choose to believe, or label I slap onto myself to please you. There is an honest fear of being rejected on either side. In that struggle, I try my best to stray away from indifference, for surely giving up would be easier than the fight.

I wasn’t taught that faith was more than black and white, but I am beginning to think it is. My faith contains colors of blue, bright yellow, and magenta. It’s deep and the shades are ever changing, from sea green to fragile peach. It reflects experience, relationships, and education. It screams out mercy and declares justice. It dances for joy and worships in peace. My faith is based on my need for a savior. And I know his name is Jesus.

Only He makes sense of my colorful mess.

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