Naked Faith

For as long as I have been a Christian, perhaps even longer, I have worn a necklace to remind me of my Lord - most often, a cross, but for a season, the tree of life. I have a ring that says, "Blessed," that I have worn for many years, so that in a stressful moment, I can look down on it and remember that I am, above all other things, loved. 

The jewelry has been kind of high maintenance - I have to take it off when I run so that the sweat doesn't corrode the metals (I learned that lesson the hard way), so these are items that I touch at least 2-3 times every day to remove, put back on, untangle, etc. This has just been part of my existence, and it's honestly not been something I have given much of a second thought to for quite awhile. 

Until last Sunday. 

Last Sunday, I was sitting in church, just worshiping for one of the first times in a long time. I'm in a new church right now; nobody knows me there. I don't have a favorite seat. I'm still feeling things out and figuring out all of the new sensory inputs. The songs are familiar, but they sound brand new. The Communion is offered, but it feels like it is freshly poured. 

I get to decide who I want to be to a people who don't know me yet. How I want to present myself. What stories I want to tell about myself. 

But I look around, and I realize - I don't know them, either. I don't know this woman sitting three chairs down in this row. I don't know this family whose heads I'm staring at the back of. I look around, and I don't know them. 

But I know they love Jesus. 

I don't know what came over me in that moment, having a whole heart full of thoughts but no real conscious ones - nothing I was deliberately thinking about, nothing I was obsessing over, no questions I was asking, nothing really running through my head. And yet, out of nowhere, I heard and felt distinctly in my heart - 

Take off your cross. 

Take off your necklace. Set it aside. There was part of me that wanted to throw it, but I realized that was probably a little dramatic. 

How could I take off my necklace? It had been with me for so long. It was an important part of who I am. It reminds me of things I am prone too easily to forget. Take it off? Just take it off? 

I wrestled with this for a long time. And, of course, being the practical person that I am, I was not simply going to take my necklace off in a darkened church auditorium. Where would I put it? What if I lost it? What if I wanted it back later? What if it was some emotional defect based on some physical state I hadn't yet figured out that was trying to dupe me into doing something I would never do? What if the devil himself was trying to separate me from my faith, right here in a new season of life, and this was his gimmick? No, I was not just going to take it off. 

But what my heart was figuring out was that...I needed to. What my heart was feeling was not a rejection of Christ or the cross or the jewelry itself, but what it had come to represent to me. It felt too easy. Of course I'm a Christian; see my cross? 

What my heart was feeling was a pull toward a more naked faith - one that demonstrates itself by living. 

And the question becomes: if my jewelry doesn't give me away, would my life still tell you I love - and am loved by - the Lord?