A quiet rebellion of the Spirit

a permission slip for your "weird"

Earlier this week I sat on the floor by a friend’s couch while she asked me some questions. We were discussing some dreams that she was contemplating for her own future and I was mostly just listening. Finally, I pointed out that not everyone had the same interests she did. This deep passion was a flashing neon sign that spoke to how God had designed her and why, but she was so close to it that she couldn’t see the sign. It was just part of her life.

I’ve had several conversations with individuals lately about what society tells us we are supposed to be as mothers, as women, as fill-in-the-blank with whatever we want. Dudes, these messages are just as insistent and insidious for you too. There are loud voices from all over telling us how to do life. The church isn’t always a lot better. I’ve had those conversations lately too. Copy this pattern and you’ll look exactly as you should. Problem is, none these methods are working for anyone. All of these conversations have turned on the same fact: no one’s experiences have matched what they have been told they should be. And striving to meet those standards did not bring flourishing. 

(Cats bring their own particularities to the world and I’m so grateful for that.)

In the past month, I’ve caught Eugene Peterson and Paul J. Pastor ruminating on the same idea. They suggest a quiet rebellion, a refusal to submit to undue requirements, a defiance of the evil that seems slight until it blossoms into destruction. 

After all, an insistence that you show up in the world a certain way doesn’t seem like a terrible evil. Annoying, maybe, but not evil. Not in a world with a threat of nuclear war, and where women are killed for showing their hair, and hatred moves from Twitter to the streets in your neighborhood. However the repercussions of following along balloon. 

When you shove down your gifts because you don’t know how to steward those alongside motherhood or you mute your calling because you haven’t seen other women (or men) do that, everyone loses.

The world is robbed of the image of God shining in you. The kingdom is robbed of movement toward maturity. Your family is denied the gifts that God placed in you. Your journey toward Christ-like-ness is hobbled. God’s plans aren’t stunted. God is running the world. A song says “Wasn’t holding you up/So there’s nothing I can do to let you down.” But your participation in the kingdom of God will be dulled. 

I think enough is enough. I cannot tell you who you are supposed to be or what your life is supposed to look like. I cannot tell you how to steward what you’ve been given or what God is doing in your life. I can tell you this. It won’t be a cookie-cutter of someone else. It won’t be a stamp that outlines your life because of the season you’re in. It won’t be a cage that refuses to allow you to stretch and grow. 

Perhaps it’s time to stop listening to what you should be or do. There is a man who greets people who walk into the auditorium at church. I can see him from where I stand near the entrance every Sunday morning. He high-fives people. He sometimes jumps and down. He brings crazy energy. (Don’t worry, the introverts can go in another door. Raising my hand with the introvert crowd). We chatted during the service a week ago and talked about how everyone should own their weird and we would all be so much better off for it.

We need your weird. Those interests? Not everyone has them and they can be cultivated into gifts for the world. Your particularities give glory to your Creator.

Stop trying to copy someone else. Stop trying to fit a pattern. Stop thinking that if you’re not this one thing that you’re a failure. Your standard is Christ and God forms all of us in different ways. In fact, God tells us that we will all be different even as we are being transformed to be like Jesus.¹

If you’re struggling with identity or next steps or restlessness with where you are in life, fix your eyes on Christ. Let the Spirit work in your unique life. Follow the God who created you exactly where He leads you. Maybe it’s even time to stop listening to or reading the people who tell you to follow this specific formula to be a better woman or mom or dad or wife or son. God rarely gives us formulas. Instead God invites us into the life shared among the Trinity where we can grow into exactly who we were made to be. 

Go in peace. And freedom. If you need a permission slip, this is it. 

1. Go read 1 Corinthians 12.