Stripped

I took the necklace off. Sometime that afternoon, or maybe that night, I don't remember, but I took it off. I laid it on my desk, where I always do when I take it off for safe keeping, and...I didn't feel as naked as I thought I would. 

I had already been thinking in my head about what it meant to have a naked faith - a faith that is known by my actions, by my heart, by my character, and not by my jewelry. Something in me had been drawn to the idea, although I confess there was still a little hesitation in my heart. Would my faith hold up?

My cross has never been for show; it's been for me. It's been to remind me that I am loved and that I am called to be loving. Most days, most of the time, nobody sees it; I'm the only one who knows it's there. I can feel it when I lie down to go to sleep. I know that it's there, and it reminds me to remember. 

But the narrative of not having it had already gotten so deeply into my heart...can I tell you? I think I thought more intentionally about my faith after I took that necklace off than I ever had while wearing it. 

And wasn't that the goal? 

Wasn't the Lord asking me to think about my faith? Wasn't He wanting me to reflect on it - on how it really looks and what it really feels like, which is so much more than the way that the silver feels running through my fingers? Wasn't God asking me to think more about the expression of my faith than the adornment of it - the way it feels deep in my bones more than the way it feels hanging around my neck? 

That was really the challenge of this moment. When I went to work the next morning - naked - I was thinking more intentionally about my faith and what it actually looks like than I had in a long time. 

A day or two later, that same small voice that told me to take my necklace off told me I could put it back on. Eventually, I did, but it feels different to me now. 

This was my Mt. Moriah moment. 

In Genesis, God called Abraham to go to the mountain and sacrifice his son, his promised son, the son that represented what God was going to do with Abraham's life. Abraham took young Isaac with him, went up the mountain, and even went so far as to bind the child with ropes while building the altar fire that would, in just moments, consume him - screaming, crying, yelling, suffering. That fire would first hurt the boy beyond all recognition until the whole promise went up in smoke and came to rest in ashes. 

I felt the same sort of thing when God called me to take my cross off. It was this laying down of something that was important to me, but had become important for all of the wrong reasons. I think it was easy for Abraham to look at Isaac and see the promise of God, but not feel it in quite the same way. I think it was easy for me to look at my cross and see the promise of God, but not feel it in quite the same way. 

So the question was: can you hold onto the promise, the real promise, and not its idolatrous substitutes? Do you have a faith that can return to God as its foundation, its source? Do you have a faith that lives on its own breath and not on rituals or relics? 

As in Abraham's life, it isn't always about forever; it's about the willingness in this moment to obey. 

I have worn that cross - or something like it - for over 20 years, maybe almost 30 by this point. But those couple of days without it told me more about my faith than that sterling silver ever has. 

And now, my goal is to live naked whether I'm wearing my adornments or not.