Making Myself Zero
A few weeks ago I blogged about my decision to walk away from evangelicalism and the faith subculture that I grew up in. It's scary to say those things out loud. You open yourself up to criticism and you realize very quickly that you have zero control over what people will think. Minds will be made up and you may be dismissed as "selling out to culture..." or worse, not even a Christian anymore.
De-converting from certainty isn't easy. Dying to your inherited faith isn't easy. Over the last couple years a few things have become painfully obvious for me; and the most important realization I've had is that, certainty worship hindered my faith. In fact, it almost made me lose it all-together.
Growing up in the Southern Baptist subculture meant that you had to be certain, you had to "know that you know" you were on the right side of faith. Heaven is the place that everybody is striving for...Hell is the place that everybody is trying to avoid.
We're right, they're wrong. We're in, they're out. I'm good because I've checked all the boxes, prayed the prayer, and armed myself with the word of God. Now I just need to go make everybody else, just like me. Conform or else.
Or else what? It's the "or else" that I've been residing in lately. Let me tell you a story...it's about a time where Holy Spirit began revealing that I could have ego or I could have humility, but I couldn't have both.
A few years ago, I worked up the nerve to ask our neighbors to attend our church with us. I really believed that their boys would enjoy the kids services and my kids would enjoy taking them. It was basically a hard pass. Can't say that I blamed them, looking back.
But what that moment opened up would lead to many genuine conversations about God, the Bible, and faith. In the moment, those conversations didn't seem out-of-the-ordinary, but looking back, I realize that Holy Spirit was using my neighbor to teach me humility.
My ego, my certainty, wanted them to have the church experience. To check the boxes. You know, the motions.
But what we both needed, was honest conversation from a place of mutual respect. Through those conversations I began to understand that what makes me most like Jesus (not attending church, not being right, not going to Heaven) is when I see a person for who they really are = someone loved by God.
I realized that it was my ego that wanted to turn her into me. To make her believe the same things, come to the same conclusions, or have my same experience. The ego is what says "we can only exist in this one way." Or worse, that God can only exist in this one way.
This all became so obvious when I worked up the nerve to ask why she gave her boys biblical names. This was one of those defining moments you have in life, where you cannot think or believe the same way afterwards.
She responded matter-of-factly that "I don't want people knowing their skin color when they read their names on paper, ya know?" No, I didn't know.
I may have a lot of hurdles as a parent, but worrying about whether people will be prejudice against my kids isn't one of them. I have NO idea what that world looks like. And one thing that I've come to realize over the years is that, we cannot grow, learn, do better, if we're never willing to get uncomfortable. If we're not willing to risk sounding like an idiot, or worse...racist.
If we aren't willing to ask awkward questions, humble ourselves, and really listen...not with the intent to correct or prove wrong, but really listen. To not offer up defenses or explanations. But to sit in uncomfortable moments with people, as they share their experiences, we're missing HUGE opportunities to love people well.
The church experience can happen anywhere. It can happen where you least expect it.
Maybe it's buying a stranger lunch.
Maybe it's giving mom hugs.
Maybe it's scary conversations.
Maybe it's listening.
Maybe it's just believing someone's story.
My neighbor and I didn't need to be between four church building walls to experience Jesus together. I no longer need someone else's experience to look exactly like mine to trust that they love Jesus just as much as I do.
Making myself zero has been one of the hardest exercises in my faith, but it has consistently been where Jesus shows me WHY it's the place where true transformation happens. When ego gets out of the way, humility has a chance to change lives.
Finding common ground isn't that hard when ego takes a backseat.
Author and Founder of Preemptive Love Coalition, Jeremy Courtney put it this way in a podcast interview recently: "If we can draw close to someone different than us and gain some empathy for them and see how we were wrong or misled, or how we misunderstood them, I think it becomes more of a practice."
It's about going close.
Imagine for a minute with me if Philip had ignored Holy Spirit when he said to confront the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. What if Philip had said, "I can't be seen with that guy." Or "Really? A eunuch? A foreigner?"
This has become one of my favorite stories of what it looks like to "go close". Holy Spirit could've chosen literally A N Y B O D Y else in the world to be the first gentile baptized into Christianity. Literally anybody. But he chose a eunuch. A sexual minority of the time (to use our language).
Holy Spirit uses language here that I absolutely love. He tells Philip to "go over and walk along side..."
I love Philip's response even more, in verse 30 it says he "ran over". In the margins of my Bible I have written..."by going close we start to see things we need to see & hear things we need to hear. Going close lets love guide us. Break away from normality and be willing to go close."
What I also love about this story is that once Philip baptizes the eunuch, it says that Holy Spirit takes Philip away. Philip doesn't get to see the end result. He doesn't get to closely monitor what the eunuch does with his life. And we aren't told either. It just says the eunuch goes about his way, rejoicing.
We see something similar in Isaiah 56:3-5. God never once says "I will only bless these eunuchs/foreigners once they change..." No, He accepts them because they've committed their lives to Him. He says "I will give them a name far greater than father or mother, this name will be everlasting!"
It's stories like this that I wish I could just insert myself into. It's these types of stories that I soak up and immerse myself into when I feel like fear or ego is creeping back in.
Holy Spirit, help me reject ego and go close.
De-converting from certainty isn't easy. Dying to your inherited faith isn't easy. Over the last couple years a few things have become painfully obvious for me; and the most important realization I've had is that, certainty worship hindered my faith. In fact, it almost made me lose it all-together.
Growing up in the Southern Baptist subculture meant that you had to be certain, you had to "know that you know" you were on the right side of faith. Heaven is the place that everybody is striving for...Hell is the place that everybody is trying to avoid.
We're right, they're wrong. We're in, they're out. I'm good because I've checked all the boxes, prayed the prayer, and armed myself with the word of God. Now I just need to go make everybody else, just like me. Conform or else.
Or else what? It's the "or else" that I've been residing in lately. Let me tell you a story...it's about a time where Holy Spirit began revealing that I could have ego or I could have humility, but I couldn't have both.
A few years ago, I worked up the nerve to ask our neighbors to attend our church with us. I really believed that their boys would enjoy the kids services and my kids would enjoy taking them. It was basically a hard pass. Can't say that I blamed them, looking back.
But what that moment opened up would lead to many genuine conversations about God, the Bible, and faith. In the moment, those conversations didn't seem out-of-the-ordinary, but looking back, I realize that Holy Spirit was using my neighbor to teach me humility.
My ego, my certainty, wanted them to have the church experience. To check the boxes. You know, the motions.
But what we both needed, was honest conversation from a place of mutual respect. Through those conversations I began to understand that what makes me most like Jesus (not attending church, not being right, not going to Heaven) is when I see a person for who they really are = someone loved by God.
I realized that it was my ego that wanted to turn her into me. To make her believe the same things, come to the same conclusions, or have my same experience. The ego is what says "we can only exist in this one way." Or worse, that God can only exist in this one way.
This all became so obvious when I worked up the nerve to ask why she gave her boys biblical names. This was one of those defining moments you have in life, where you cannot think or believe the same way afterwards.
She responded matter-of-factly that "I don't want people knowing their skin color when they read their names on paper, ya know?" No, I didn't know.
I may have a lot of hurdles as a parent, but worrying about whether people will be prejudice against my kids isn't one of them. I have NO idea what that world looks like. And one thing that I've come to realize over the years is that, we cannot grow, learn, do better, if we're never willing to get uncomfortable. If we're not willing to risk sounding like an idiot, or worse...racist.
If we aren't willing to ask awkward questions, humble ourselves, and really listen...not with the intent to correct or prove wrong, but really listen. To not offer up defenses or explanations. But to sit in uncomfortable moments with people, as they share their experiences, we're missing HUGE opportunities to love people well.
The church experience can happen anywhere. It can happen where you least expect it.
Maybe it's buying a stranger lunch.
Maybe it's giving mom hugs.
Maybe it's scary conversations.
Maybe it's listening.
Maybe it's just believing someone's story.
My neighbor and I didn't need to be between four church building walls to experience Jesus together. I no longer need someone else's experience to look exactly like mine to trust that they love Jesus just as much as I do.
Finding common ground isn't that hard when ego takes a backseat.
Author and Founder of Preemptive Love Coalition, Jeremy Courtney put it this way in a podcast interview recently: "If we can draw close to someone different than us and gain some empathy for them and see how we were wrong or misled, or how we misunderstood them, I think it becomes more of a practice."
It's about going close.
Imagine for a minute with me if Philip had ignored Holy Spirit when he said to confront the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. What if Philip had said, "I can't be seen with that guy." Or "Really? A eunuch? A foreigner?"
This has become one of my favorite stories of what it looks like to "go close". Holy Spirit could've chosen literally A N Y B O D Y else in the world to be the first gentile baptized into Christianity. Literally anybody. But he chose a eunuch. A sexual minority of the time (to use our language).
Holy Spirit uses language here that I absolutely love. He tells Philip to "go over and walk along side..."
What I also love about this story is that once Philip baptizes the eunuch, it says that Holy Spirit takes Philip away. Philip doesn't get to see the end result. He doesn't get to closely monitor what the eunuch does with his life. And we aren't told either. It just says the eunuch goes about his way, rejoicing.
We see something similar in Isaiah 56:3-5. God never once says "I will only bless these eunuchs/foreigners once they change..." No, He accepts them because they've committed their lives to Him. He says "I will give them a name far greater than father or mother, this name will be everlasting!"
It's stories like this that I wish I could just insert myself into. It's these types of stories that I soak up and immerse myself into when I feel like fear or ego is creeping back in.
Holy Spirit, help me reject ego and go close.
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