My Inner Hippie

Well, it happened.  All the people who were concerned about my involvement in Christian Yoga and contemplative practices were right.  They clearly saw the danger ahead of me and the perilous path on which I was embarking.  They must have known that yoga and silence were just gateway drugs.  If I was open to such questionable activity, my judgement couldn't be trusted and certainly I would end up abandoning my faith or, worse, becoming a...gasp...liberal.  

Group Hug

This week I found myself so deeply impacted by the love of God that I had no words.  I found myself loving others so deeply I felt like an idiot.  I found myself ready to abandon everything for Love.  

Who am I?  

While this was no sentimental, sappy, Hallmark card experience of love, it was an emotion.  Or, perhaps more of a physical presence. How weird is that?  

I don't want to write too much because words seem to diminish the sacredness of this transformation, but my foundation has been rocked and I'm amazed at a God who would so lovingly disassemble my prickly, protective coping mechanisms so I could fully live and love and be loved.  

Today I find I'm not hiding behind my life experience or my emotional health or my spiritual resume or my well-crafted sentences.  I'm a beginner again.  Sitting at the feet of Jesus while he introduces me to so many I've dismissed and overlooked who may have much less external success or platform but have love in great measure.  

For the first time in my life I'm beginning to understand what Paul means when he says, 

" But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." 

Do you see what's happened?  I started a journey some years ago and I was adequately warned that it would lead to something radical.  Something unsafe.  Something that would change me. 

 I insisted it wouldn't affect me.  

I was wrong.  Praise God.  

Photo Cred

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