Fashion and Faith

Is faith something you wear? Is it a culture you live in? Is it a place you go, apart from the rest of your life? Do you talk about it, but not walk within it? Do you wear it like a fashion? Take it off? Change it depending on your circumstances. Or maybe you always wear it, even talk about it, but are you living it?

I haven’t written in some time because I was lost in figuring out who I am, and the dichotomy of that idea was wearing it (fashion) and living it (faith), and I didn’t find myself “good enough” to blog about it. As if somehow I am going to be perfect in my journey and arrive at some fantasized place of what my faith should look like. And yet, I also felt that if I am going to walk this faith, it should look like something better than what the world is offering. I mean, how can I display faith if I’m living like everyone else in the world? Shouldn’t faith set me apart?

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”

Matthew 5:13-14

If I have been transformed by Christ, shouldn’t my life look like it?

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

2 Corinthians 5:17

And if my life doesn’t look like it, am I a fraud? Am I capable of leading others to Jesus? Am I talking about Jesus, or does my life– even despite my transgressions–still look like I am following him on this journey? One of the things I’ve had to ask myself at the end of every day is: what did this look like to_____? And one of the things I am learning in my discernment of people is what their lives look like. I’m allowed to judge to have discernment; it’s how we can tell if someone bears fruit or not. How often have people attended church and met those churchy people who look like they’ve got it all together? They speak tons about Jesus and their love for him, but then you become friendly with them outside of church, and their lives don’t LOOK like it. They incorporate pieces of Jesus, but the whole output of their lives just looks like everyone else–whether it’s vying for their position, their habits, or their other friends. I’ve become somewhat uncomfortable socializing with people who aren’t amenable to this journey I’m on, and I am looking for my whole life to reflect Jesus in every aspect. And while I still contend with my own issues (I like to say sometimes that I’m like the New Yorker magazine, lots of issues!) I am not looking to get comfortable with them; I am looking to rise above those issues, I am looking to break bad habits; I am looking to walk the path less traveled.

I’ve had to think about every aspect of who I am in the course of my day: driving! Interacting on social media, work, and how I raise my kids. So, while I focus on who I am, I also have to recognize the people I am in contact with and have discernment because, quite simply, we become what we hang around. Is that me judging others and feeling they aren’t good enough for me? ABSOLUTELY NOT. It IS about understanding the path they may lead me down, and that is on me. I have to recognize my weaknesses in areas of my life for which I don’t stay strong. Like an alcoholic who doesn’t want to go to a bar, I have to guard myself against the things that will weaken me, that betray who I am yearning to be in the name of the God that made me and to stay away from that which defies his word for my life.

If I am called to be holy and obedient to his word, then I have to be discerning of the situations I have already been called out of. Like Lot’s wife, I don’t want to look back and long for a life that I already prayed to be removed from and isn’t following Jesus.

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

Exodus 19:5-6

When I look around me and read the news and see what’s happened over the past 10 years in this nation, all I can see are a people so astray from God. I see myself and cringe at who I have been, so if my faith is merely an identity I put on in the right company or just a conversation about my identity, then I have failed. But my faith should be something others identify in me, it shouldn’t have to be told by me. And it should be apparent on a daily basis; it should be the prevailing measure of who I am; it’s not fashion; it’s faith, and this walk is HARD, but it is so incredibly peaceful, too. What deeds am I producing if I merely wear my faith as a virtue without it being an act?

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?  Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.“

 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

James 2:14-15

So, when we think about our walk with our Lord, are we considering how it affects us? How it affects others? Do we wear it like a virtue signal? Do we live in a way that is transforming us and others?