How Do You Want To Be Known?

Hello friends. It's always my aim to blog on Mondays. And some weeks lend themselves to quiet contemplation and easy ordering of thoughts, so that, come Monday, I can sit down at my laptop, and  perfectly lucid ideas come streaming from my mind, through my nimble fingertips, and onto this page.

This, I'm afraid, was not one of those weeks.

It has been a crazy week. My life has been a whirlwind of activity and my head a whirlwind of thought. I've been challenged on some ideas and convicted on others and I have made some pretty difficult decisions in my constant pursuit of learning what it means to acknowledge Christ's lordship and bring honor and glory to God with my heart, mind, and body. And while I started this blog with the intent of weekly tackling big and difficult ideas, I'm afraid I'm not so awesome as to weekly have something big and difficult to share. Not every week allows me to indulge in my scholarly pursuits, I'm afraid.

But just because the ideas in my head aren't big or difficult doesn't mean that they aren't important. As I further open myself to Christ's lordship in my life, the further I am convicted in so many areas, many of which I have never even considered or thought important. This week, the Spirit has left this little niggling question in my mind, and I haven't been able to help but meditate on it of most of this week.

How do you want to be known?

For most of my life I have been a person who has gone with the who-cares-what-people-think mantra. I've always been a bit of a square peg, and people generally find me to be uncomfortably outside the box. And when this is who you are, you either conform, spend your life filled with self-doubt, or grow a thick skin. I eschewed the first and adopted a perhaps not-so-healthy combination of the latter two, and led my life in the constant pursuit of trying to define who I am. And I've put on and taken off many meaningless hats in that pursuit: hardcore, emo, greaser, tattooed and pierced freak, party girl, the girl with the (insert ridiculous color here) hair, smoker, drinker, alcoholic, recovering alcoholic ..the list continues. The list of trying to define myself outside of the Body of Christ. None of it mattered.

I've grown and changed a lot in the last 6 years. Heck, I've grown and changed a lot in the last 6 months. But there is one ideal from my purposeless and fruitlessly rebellious youth that remains: I am adamantly against conformity or letting people, culture, or tradition define me. Now this doesn't mean that I still don't enjoy being held in high esteem by my peers, or being otherwise respected or admired. But I don't allow the esteem or opinions of my peers, or the paradigms or traditions of cultures or groups to define who I am, what I believe, or how I behave (Colossians 2:8). I am always open to wise counsel (Proverbs 19:20-21), and if you disagree with me, I will always listen, we can weigh it against scripture and hash it out (1 Corinthians 11:19).

But the long and short of it is this: I have a living and active Scripture (Hebrews 4:12) and an indwelling Spirit (John 16:13). Those are my most powerful weapons on this treacherous battlefield, and one will never contradict the other; as long as I faithfully devote myself to both, I can confidently and fearlessly follow the path set before me (Palm 119:105).  I rely on truth from no man, instead I take all preaching, teaching, and instruction and weigh it against what the Scripture and the Spirit have revealed. If the concepts are particularly tough, I take my questions to another Believer who is older and wiser and firmly grounded in Biblical truth, and he or she will crack open a Bible and walk me through it. But in the end, Christ convicts my heart; I will stand before Jesus to give account for myself, and I will be answerable to no one but Him (Romans 14:10-12). And I doubt He will say, "why didn't you try harder to fit in? You made people uncomfortable with your constant challenging and questioning and square-peggishness."

Now of course, there are more issues here that need to and will be addressed at some point: the pursuit of Christ is not meant to be an individual pursuit, but rather a corporate one, we are supposed to be subject to each other as one body under Christ's headship. But in the end, when I stand before Jesus, and He asks, "Why didn't you do what I commanded?" I don't think He'll accept "Well nobody else in my church/small group/community/etc was doing it" as an answer.

So back to the original question: how am I known? To those that like me (or at least respect me), I am the bold one, the one not afraid to question authority or challenge brothers and sisters to a deeper understanding of their faith, who has strong opinions that I'm not afraid to share, and a pretty decent head for Biblical knowledge. To those who don't like me, I am the constant thorn, the dissenter, the strife-bringer. ............

But how do I want to be known? As that girl who is so crazy in love with Jesus, so entirely sold out to His lordship, that she would do ANYTHING, say ANYTHING, throw off, forfeit, give-up, lose ANYTHING, EVERYTHING, and ANYONE in the pursuit of His honor and glory. That's  who I want to be. That's how I want to be known.

How do you want to be known?