Friday, November 26, 2010

Trust Falls...

When I say “trust fall” my guess is you know exactly what I am talking about. A favorite of leadership summits and teambuilding activities at every age, the trust fall consists of at least two people. The first stands steady and sure behind the second who rolls back on their heels with their arms across their chest and falls into the waiting arms of person number one before there is an opportunity to plummet to the ground. The second must trust that the first won’t fail. Won’t drop them. Won’t forget to put their hands out. Won’t let them down.

Sometimes I feel like life, and more specifically my relationship with God, is one giant trust fall.

Trust.

I am terrible at trusting. The trust fall? I’ve never mastered it. I always willingly stood steady and sure behind anyone who needed my strong arms, but any time I’ve gone for the fall, I stumble. I catch myself. I can rely on me. I can’t rely on you. I never realized how much that very literal exercise transcended into my very present life. How little of myself I let others hold. The guilt I feel when they do. The way in which I would go in with the aim to trust and pull back before the free fall could land me somewhere I feared, somewhere I couldn’t see.

But God says: trust. Not just people...although I am learning slowly and definitely that I have to be willing to do this too...but first and especially, Him.

I began a brief (and also limited) search into my bible for the word trust and came up with a few initial observations. First, trustworthiness is a character of God. God can be trusted. It is in His nature. It is who He is. It is a reason for thanks. A reason for praise. It is something to be imitated. Second, the innate character of God should never be questioned. And so, there is always a consequence – natural or punishment – when God is not trusted. Finally, trust and obedience go hand in hand. We are called to trust and obey, admonished when we don’t do both.

There are more observations to make and much to be said about each of the above but mostly, in my brief scan, it became evident that the trust I claimed was lacking if present at all. When I find I haven’t obeyed or claim I don’t know how to, I also haven’t trusted. More discouraging yet, my actions doubt and question the character of God. I stood back in disgust at this initial realization and had the following conversation:

[Indignantly] “I do too! I do trust You!”

“You do?”

“Well I try. And at least I don’t doubt that You are trustworthy! I don’t deny your character even though I sometimes try to catch myself...”

“Really? Because you don’t act on that knowledge and then you blame me when things go your way...”

“But...”

“Do you really trust me?”

“Yes. I do. I trust you. I think...”

“Anika, listen. Do you trust me? Do you really trust me? If you trust me...then come closer. If you trust me...then wait. If you trust me...then know my forgiveness. If you trust me...then accept my love. If you trust me...then expect me not to fail you. If you trust me...then freefall knowing I stand ready to catch you. If you trust me...then drop the burden you’re holding and let me hold it, hold you. If you trust me...then let me hold you. I ask you one more time...Do you trust me?”

I was humbled to realize I didn’t. “No. I don’t trust You. Not if this is even part of the criteria. I don’t. But I want to...”


I know God’s strength. Intimately. Genuinely. Absolutely. But, as my own previously penned words express “How can I possibly triumph the strength of the arms I have never allowed to carry me?” Or never allowed to catch me. I still stand in front of His ready, sure, and guaranteed presence doubting He’ll catch me if I fall towards where I know He is waiting. And yet, I am asked to trust. I want to. "Oh for grace to trust him more..."


The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him. Psalm 28:7

But I trust in you, Lord; I say “You are my God.” Psalm 31:14

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Encouraged

In my short time as an SAU alumna, I have made several trips back to my alma matter. (It helps that my sister is a sophomore there and so I have at least excusable reasons other than homesickness to venture back as often as I do/have.) But I always try to make the most of my trips on the campus that is still familiar and comfortable if not quite still mine, if no longer quite home. With connections to people on faculty and staff and students freshmen through super-senior, there is any number of people I could run into, recognize, purposefully seek out, spend meaningful time with.

I think my favorite part has been that selfish part of me that doesn’t need the recognition but appreciates the affirmation and the acceptance. I do try to be intentional with my visits. To connect with people I may have missed the last time around. But I am always amazed by the people who find me first. In the last few visits I have laughed: “I am WAY more popular as has-been then I EVER was a student!” I can’t think of a visit where someone(s) – and sometimes someone(s) I would have not at all expected – has not seen me and I am greeted with a face that was lit up. With an “Anika! You’re here! It’s SO good to see you!” With a hug.

In the awkward land of “so now you’re a college graduate”...a land that college students realize is coming and hope will never happen to them...a land where even the most basic experienced community is ripped from underneath of them and disconnect is a painful reminder that four years is plenty long and never long enough...these pieces come as welcome and needed respites from day-to-day life. I come back from SAU notoriously exhausted with a spirit that’s curiously light.

I easily forget what it is like to be around people who affirm your personhood...just for being you. I forget the importance of former professors and bosses and advisors who are still eager to be involved in your life and to speak truth into it. I forget that feeding into people in little ways has this way of feeding back into you. I forget that there is freedom in being known and still loved...even and despite the deals and messes in your life. I forget the power of asking people where God is working in their lives and being uplifted by the accountability and strength in the answers. I forget that God shows up somehow clearer in the faces of fellow believers who together seek to mirror Christ in their lives.

And those things, those people, encourage me. The reminders of things so easily forgotten encourage me. I am reminded of how much I love people...and that endeavoring towards ministry I can’t articulate isn’t stupid. I’m reminded that there are people who ask real questions and stick around to hear real answers. I am reminded that I am part of a bigger picture...and that I can’t sit in my brokenness without recognizing the brokenness in the lives of others. I am reminded of things I shouldn’t need to be reminded of...like the fact I have an intrinsic worth as the daughter of the King too. It is easy to be okay being an involuntary celebrity when the encouragement reminds me of the joy that is already mine...

Something tells me that this marked way that encouragement is a natural response to the life we live and the people we interact with is part of the way things were meant to be. I feel...blessed...to be a recipient of it and only hope I reciprocate in such a way as to be part of the strengthening of the Body as whole...

“Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”
1 Thessalonians 5:11

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Let it be so

Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper,
but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
Proverbs 28:13


This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you:
God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.
If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness,
we lie and do not live out the truth.
But if we walk in the light,
as he is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus,
his Son,
purifies us from all sin.
1 John 1:5-7


I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.
Jeremiah 31:3b

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Even if it Hurts

I was getting ready to blog today...

About seven times.

And for about seven different reasons.

The weight of the world sitting curiously on my shoulders.

This morning during my workout/prayer time...it was your worlds. Every world. With faces and names and lives and situations flooding through my head, I pushed all the more intensely on my elliptical and I shouted (aloud) "Daddy, hold them! Hold their worlds. I'm not big enough! I can't do it! I can love them but I don't know if they know just how much I do. And I can't fix it. I can't fix all of the brokenness. Fix it, because I can't..."

Another time it was THE world. Stemming from me making rice muffins. After eating four without flinching (very curious and strange for me...), I wondered how food allergies and intolerances were diagnosed in other countries, what they did about them. All until a cynical voice in my head replied “if they eat enough to develop an intolerance to anything...” What started as guilt fell to a hurt for thousands of kids whose faces I can’t even create a frame of reference for...

I wanted to blog after watching a youTube clip of a vivacious four-year-old who dances in the mirror saying everything great about her life. I wondered when the last time I was so excited about the great things in my life. Let alone the times I am confidant enough to say “I can do anything good!” (Philippians 4:13 maybe?) with the help of the One who’s strength I rest upon. Do I trust? Do I praise?

Tonight a new family friend who recently went through some extreme life crap joined us for dinner. A man seeking earnestly to figure out where God would have him, he asked honest and interested questions. Knowing something of my story (that I didn’t tell him), he asked me – based upon where he now found himself – if I ever found it hard to be depend on God during my circumstance. It proceeded to reveal many small pieces of my story. He later thanked me for telling him and for being real and asked me if it was hard to share. "It's not my story,” I told him plainly, “it's God's. I didn't always see it that way but I'm realizing if I am going to allow my story to actually be about Him, then I don't have the right to not give evidence to where I've been, where He's taking me, if I'm asked. I want to live my life to make God known..." With a fervent prayer for God to be known in and through me, I realized...

There were pieces that needed to be shared. Pieces of my story that remain untold that will one day need to be given over to be God’s story if I really continually pray for God to be revealed in me. Secrets have to come out of darkness if Christ is going to shine through. The thought of sharing secrets gave me a panic attack and caused me to physically shake in a way I thought I was cold and would never get warm. The hurt of the worlds of other people, let alone my own...it was too much. And all I could think of was a Relient K song I love...

“You said ‘I know that this will hurt. But if I don’t break your heart, then things will just get worse...’”

I believe God has something He is doing in and through me with the weight that has my heart breaking. Trying to remember that life is about surrender. If I want to be whole, if I want wholeness for the ones I love and pray for, if I want wholeness for the world I want to impact, if I want my story to be given to God for His use and disposal, then I have to allow Him to do what it takes, despite the cost, to make my heart brand new... Even if it hurts.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Name that Tune...

If I start singing the words: “I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry...” Do you know what song I am singing? What if I kept going “...All who dwell in dark and sin, my hand will save...” I could start on the chorus...

But I didn’t actually even need to get that far. Or through the first line, for that matter. Although it took me until line two to make the connection...

My family reads devos together at dinner time. “Keys for Kids” has long since been replaced as we’ve grown and over the last couple years we’ve taken to reading from “Our Daily Bread”...starting with reading the Bible passage and surrounding text and finishing with the day’s devotional. I, with my theology degree, love to have an official end be a discussion about how the devo did or did not do a good job of biblical exegesis and interpretation; how the passage could have been better applied; or, how the illustration could have been more appropriately tied into a different passage of scripture.

Tonight I was tired and not feeling my best and was content to merely listen without argument (friendly though it may be) and without critique. The devotional had to do with being willing to love across the cultural divides, to be willing to show the light of Christ in midst of a very different and very dark world. “That’s nice.” I thought. Not disagreeing but feeling like their presentation was a little weak.

And then they ended with some sort of “How will you share God’s love across the cultural divide?” challenge.

At which point, it occurred to me I was humming a song.

And I listened to the words in my head “I, the Lord of sea and sky...”

I smirked and half-groaned and, as my family closed in prayer, I raised my head and whispered “Okay, I get it...”

Have you named that tune?

The chorus breaks into: “Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?...”

It just happens to also be the song which I believed, at the time, to confirm and affirm my newly chosen youth ministry degree.

I don’t believe much in coincidence. A friend reminded me this weekend of the fact that, if we allow it, everything...every conversation, every instance, has the potential to be a divine appointment. I love this traditional hymn, but I would question why it would all the sudden come to mind without reason. And why after such a challenge... if not to signify something I have felt stronger and stronger and stronger over the last few weeks – God wants me for ministry. He’s set me aside for it. Why me, I have no idea.

I can do any other job in-between, probably. God hasn't told me "no". But, at some point, I, heart, mind, body, and soul, am never going to be satisfied until I’m stuck in the middle of something He is doing. Doing in way that the all of who I am is given to it...not just as a part of my bigger picture – but AS my bigger picture. Though for the life of me, I still can’t put a finger on what. My restless spirit waits.

What do you do when you feel like in a “call to be faithful”, the “call” is becoming more and more intense and the “faithful” is becoming more and more ambiguous? My only response, the only one I can think of, is Samuel’s. “Speak, for your servant is listening"... (1 Samuel 3)

Here I Am, Lord

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Be Made Whole

Your eyes pierce
In intense dark confusion,
Focused as if seeing
Life light-years away.
They hold
The key to your heartache,
They show the hurt
You won’t, don’t dare to say.

And I look into your eyes
And I know
Through the pain and through the darkness
You’re dying to be made whole.
And you blink away the fears
And hold back the tears
Beginning to seep
From your tired soul.
And I can see through your eyes,
You’re dying to be made whole.

Your words throb
With weary exhaustion.
Each syllable weighing
Each short breath down.
The fatigue holds
The things you’re not saying,
Unmasking the weak smile
Just covering your frown.

And I listen to your voice
And I know
Through the noise and through the chaos
You’re dying to be made whole.
You shrug off the upset
And wipe away the cold sweat,
Failing to admit
Life is taking its toll.
And I can hear in your voice,
You’re dying to be made whole.

Your shoulders sag
Under the weight of the world,
The pressures of living cracking
Your hard outer shell.
You’re begging for strength
Just to get to tomorrow,
Looking for the life
You lost when you fell.

And I watch as you stand
And I know
Through the resolve and through the weakness
You’re dying to be made whole.
You internalize the unspoken,
Piecing together the broken,
While the shards fall
From your grasping control.
And I can watch as you stand,
You’re dying to be made whole.

Your heart leaks
From your begging eyes;
Your voice quivers
And your spirit cries.
Oh precious child
With brokenness to spare,
This world of taunting sorrow
Was not meant for you to bear.

And I feel your heart bleed
And I wish you would know
Though unwarranted and undeserved
There’s One who died to make you whole
You collapse into His strong arms
And rest upon His mercy scars
While His love covers
While His whispers console
Your precious bleeding heart,
He died to make whole...



***It's been a long while since I've been compelled towards "poetry". But this is what flowed when I started to journal the other night after too many separate and very different conversations that all came back to the same... Sometimes I just want to come in and hug away and fix all the brokenness in the lives of my "kids" and I have to remember the fixing isn't up to me. Oh Father, step before me to do what I can't and provide your restoration to those dying to be made whole...

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

‘What’s In A Name?’ Part2 – We Reproduce Who We Are

I spent considerable time while at my grandparents reflecting on what it meant to “be a Kasper”. I’m old enough to see things I didn’t see before and analytical enough to look into words and situations and one of my profiled strengths is that of a connector and I began to put together pieces. As grandma told stories and grandpa gave me instructions in the green house, as I watched my grandparents interact and both respond to life as it came, I began to look for where I fit into the beautiful mess.

I wish I had an opportunity to meet my Grandpa Baas and more time to spend with my Grandma Baas...as I know I am just as much them as I am the Kasper which gives me my namesake. I know my whit and quirk is my Grandma B’s. I am convinced how much I love to learn and read and my aptitude for arbitrary and useless information is hers as well. If I had to guess, some of my zest and intrinsic uniqueness and appreciation for the less-than-ordinary came from her. I like to think that my desires to live generously and to love people authentically (not that my Kasper grandparents don’t, by any means, Grandma B was just known for those things...) could have been passed down to me as well. I know some of my indirectness, “addictive” nature, and propensity towards saving everything (less attractive features) probably came from her too.

And I do know that while I am very “Baas”, I’m almost all Kasper. I’ve watched it come through the more and more time I spend with my grandparents. There is no mistaking who I am. Somewhere in the middle of this pondering came the reminder of a quote which reads: “You teach what you know. You reproduce who you are.” Hmm...

As grandpa pointed to seedlings and showed me how to transplant and I took to the dirt, I thought “I could do this. I could be a horticulturist like grandpa if I wanted to be...” I didn’t want to be...but I was capable after some simple instructions. Most people would not step up to a greenhouse work bench and start transplanting, but they probably could too if my grandfather was standing there next to them as well...showing how to wedge a hole, separate the roots, replant the small green flower want-to-be. But that wouldn’t make them a Kasper. You teach what you know. (And I’ve learned a lot from my grandpa.) But you reproduce who you are...

My grandpa is stubborn and bull-headed and proud. If it is his idea, it is the best. If it was your idea first, it will have to be his brand new, second to be the one implemented. He takes life by the horns and doesn’t let anyone else’s ‘no’ get in the way of his made-up mind. He does what he wants... and asks for permission later (if ever at all). Grandpa strives towards excellence and works hard. He wants things done well (and tells you when they aren’t up to par). He’s critical. Independent and obstinate, he is the breathing embodiment of ‘if you want something done right, you do it yourself!’ He is intentional and committed, loyal and credible. Grandpa’s ‘yes’ is ‘yes’ and his ‘no’ is ‘no’ and if he says he’s going to do something, he will. If he doesn’t think he can follow through, he makes no promises.

If I spend too much time thinking about these pieces of my grandfather’s character, I start to laugh. Looking at him is looking in a mirror. The outlets are different but the root the same. I am stubborn and critical (sometimes this is good, other times...not so much). No one can change my mind if I’ve made it up. I work hard and I want what I do to be done well. I follow through, (literally to a fault). I would rather do it right the first time than delegate. If I have an idea, I like mine best.

My grandma is a Kasper by choice. And after 51 years, much more Kasper than not. She is dedicated. Faithful. Patient. Selfless. She puts aside what she wants to work on consistently to help my grandpa. She’s exacting and precise – after cooking for decades; she still follows recipes “just so”. She is a servant and gives of herself willingly but tries to hide how much she enjoys when something she did (aka: the cake at the funeral luncheon that the boys couldn’t get enough of) makes other people smile. She grasps on to the small details and her grandkids know they’re loved when she remembers little things (like which one of us would rather have her banana bread or cheesecake or ginger snaps over anything else...). She is also insecure, unsure. She wants the approval of others and doubts herself consistently until that approval is met. Whether it is years of grandpa’s exacting standards or part of her nature (stories from her childhood would point to the latter), she wants to measure up. But grandma is feisty. Adamant. Determined. Ready to take on projects...wants to see them finished. She fights for things that matter to her and ‘sticks to her guns’ when confronted with something contrary to what she believes to be right and true.

Some of who my grandmother is I see in myself. Some I want to see. I am unsurprised by my love for finding little ways to make people smile and remembering the little details about people which help me accomplish it. My need for my own projects and my adamant determination? Grandma’s. My fight to the death for things I care about? Grandma’s. I hope her dedication and selflessness and the faithful and patient way she serves and comes alongside [my grandpa] can be things to be said true of me as well. I want them to be true of me but I will question it...because I want to measure up and will doubt myself until I have the approval of others...

All of those things...from my Grandpa and Grandma K and my Grandma Baas? Those aren’t things you teach. You don’t sit down and say: “today kids, we’re going to talk about how to be as stubborn as a mule.” I mean, you could, if you knew about it. But that doesn’t make kids stubborn. No more so than giving a day seminar on being a servant leader. I mean, you could, if you knew something about it. But talking about service and selfless abandon doesn’t make perfect little helpers or world-changing leaders. I am who I am as a “Kasper” (with Baas heritage) not because I was taught how to be a Kasper (although sometimes I was told straight out “You’re a Kasper! Act like it!”), but because it is a part of who they are, it was modeled for me, demonstrated, embodied. You live what you know. I am because they are. You reproduce who you are...

So where am I going with this? Good question. I’m not sure I’m certain. It is just that I realized I know lots of things. I am the keeper of enough random, arbitrary, and useless information to keep my Puerto Rico team giving me that amused and bewildered eyebrow smirk for a really long time. Furthermore, I have a lot of right answers...about how to do life even! I talk to my teenagers and impart truth and say wise things and watch and listen as they try to absorb all I want them to learn. I can teach what I know.

But what about who I am? I’m a Kasper. Clearly. This is day two of “what’s in a name?” We’ve got that one. What do I reproduce? The people who spend time with me...what are they becoming? I mean, perceivably, the more time you spend with me the more stubborn, determined, passionate, insecure, and clinically insane you will become. That’s who I am...but is there more?

Yesterday I wanted who I was to point back to who Christ is. I want people to see my identity and family line as Child of God as something told and true. So now what? Because I believe I am called to ministry. Do I teach about how much Jesus loves? Or is that love so much a part of who I am that those I minister to become pieces of love reaching hands into a broken world? Do I teach about grace or do I extend it to you and point to Grace which hung on a cross and died as the perfect atonement for the sin I deserve to die for? Do I teach about joy or does my life radiate with a peace which passes understanding and a lifestyle which says praise is choice and is always the choice to be made, regardless of circumstances? Do I teach or do I live? Any old scholar can teach a lecture hall class on theology, will my life stand to personify? Can I be in ministry if the things I “know” aren’t true of me? Well sure. Bobble-headed and fantastically brilliant pastors are a quarter a dozen (inflation and all). But the ‘so what?’ factor is missing. Isaiah 29:13 (then quoted in Matthew 15:8 and Mark 7:6) says “you honor me with your lips but your hearts are far from me” and 1 John 2:6 says “if you claim to be in Him, you will walk as Jesus walked” and it is proceeded in verses 3 and 4 with “We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.” The first verse tells us that knowing things and being things are separate. The second that claiming things comes with a response. The third that if we don’t act out of truth we claim, the truth isn’t a part of who we are. In short? True ministry will come if I am reproducing who I am...and who I am is centered in who Christ is...not merely if I can teach what I know.

I am a Kasper. No two ways about it.

If I say I am a Christ Follower with the same certainty, would it be reflected in what I do? In who I am? In who YOU are? If not in who you are, have I taught the truth and not lived it? Because I can teach what I know, but I can only reproduce who I am...

Monday, November 8, 2010

‘What’s In A Name?’ Part1 – Family Resemblance

I’m a Kasper.

Perhaps this goes as something unsaid. Obvious.

I have been a Kasper for 22 years...since the day I was born and the nine months which preceded it. It’s one of those things you don’t exactly get to choose...

But I am a Kasper.

Through and through.

The perhaps, most epic and known plays of all time is Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. And with it comes the unforgettable and cherished line: “What's in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.”

The audience cheers silently, the reader smirks. ‘Yes! Deny the father! Refuse the name! That girl has a point! The name doesn’t make the person, the person makes the name! Go for it!’

Sort of. But not really. We’re wrong. Juliet is wrong. A rose by any other name does smell a little less sweet. There is much in a name. The name comes with expectations. The name brings definition.

Hubert Humphrey once wrote: “In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.”

I am no different. I am what I seem to be. My name is no different. Being a Kasper says a lot about me. Whether I want it to or not (more on this tomorrow?).

I guess I’ve always been aware of this, to a point. But I’ve never been around a lot of other “Kaspers”. My immediate relatives are several hours away. I could be connected to my parents and siblings growing up, but never anyone else. This alone said something about who I was and who I was expected to be, but my lines go deeper.

I’m in the process of spending two weeks at my grandparent’s house as I write this. It’s the longest I’ve spent in Ionia since I was six...when I lived here. Kaspers...my grandparents, my uncles, my cousins...they are well-known around these parts. Yesterday grandpa took me out for lunch and was greeted again and again and again by various customers throughout the small café. Everyone seemed to know him. And I was with him and so demanded an introduction. “And who is this?” they would say pointing to me, “does Marian [my grandmother] know about your young dates?” “This is my granddaughter, Anika, John’s girl.” My grandpa would reply. “Oh! Well! It is so good to meet you!” In the introduction I would watch eyes and expressions elevate me on some acquaintance scale because I was related to Sid.

Being known by my name, my family of origin, is a tall order and it comes with a great deal of responsibility. My grandpa is highly respected in the Ionia area and if I am truly a Kasper, I should match. My favorite visit at the Café was a woman who came, greeted my grandpa, inquired about my identity and replied “Oh! I can see it now that you’ve said something. She looks a lot like you, Sid!” I shot my grandpa a confused and amused glance as she walked away...I had never been informed I looked like my grandfather before. Grandpa smirked at me and shrugged. “What are you looking at me like that for? I don’t even know who that lady is!” We shared a laugh but the fact of the matter remained, it didn’t matter if grandpa could have picked her out of a line-up of strangers, she knew exactly who my grandfather was and as a result was confident she knew things about me.

It made me wonder what and how and who I represent. If someone (from Ionia, say) were to meet me without my grandfather around, would they be able to see the family resemblance without the family name because of my work ethic, determination, willingness to lend a hand, desire for excellence? Would they find out I was a Kasper and say “Oh! I can see it now that you’ve said something! You look/act a lot like...[quite frankly you can fill in most any immediate Kasper grandparent, uncle, aunt or cousin name here]...!” Or would they marvel at how a pear like me could fall from the apple tree?

And it made me wonder further about what and how and Who I represent. I have a Kasper lineage but I also have namesake as a [daughter] of God (Galatians 4:6). Adopted (Ephesians 1:5) into an inheritance that will never perish, spoil, or fade (1 Peter 1:4). I have staked a claim on my faith and try, though never as painstakingly as such a name asks, to work out my salvation (Philippians 2:12). ‘Faith without works is dead’ says James 2 and my actions ought to represent the family line I am claiming. There is much held by a name (for good and for bad) when I tell someone that I’m a Christian. Do I live up to the definition that name gives in the way that I should? Furthermore, what if someone were to meet me without that label, that title, that name? Would they see my service, my hope, my desire to be gracious and forgiving towards others, my perseverance, my patience, my peace, my joy, and most of all my love? Would they find out I was a follower of Christ, a professing child of God and say “Oh! I can see it now that you’ve said something! You look a lot like Jesus!” Or would they try and speculate how I could possibly be what I claimed?

Some day, I hope I’m confused for Jesus. May a declaration like “I am Child of God!” seem as obvious and unsaid as stating “I am a Kasper”. May being known by my name and the identity I hold in Christ always be my greatest pursuit and most obvious recognition...