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| What do you think? Belt or no belt? (This photo was actually taken so that I could send it to my girlfriends for opinions.) |
My friend, Sara, wears belts. She wears them really well. She has a ton of different kinds and colors,
and she wears them a variety of ways.
Sara is really famous for wearing a belt on the outside of a cardigan,
and it looks so cute on her. I’ve tried
wearing belts like she does. I
especially tried doing it when I was pregnant to accentuate the fact that I had
a baby bump and wasn’t just plain fat, but it didn’t work for me. Andy actually died laughing one morning when
I came out dressed for church wearing a belt on top of my bump. It looked adorable in the Motherhood catalog
on all the other pregnant ladies, but I guess it looked ridiculous on me
because it just didn’t fit my style.
And, frankly, it is really hard for a girl to change her style. If you’ve ever tried, you know exactly what I
mean. The sweatshirt wearing, yoga pant
loving lady who puts on a dress and heels for the first time draws as many comments
as the preppy, monogrammed obsessed woman who dresses down for the day. A radical style change just doesn’t typically
happen in the female world.
I love Galatians 1:11-24 because it recounts Paul’s
salvation experience which always reminds me of a girl who radically changes
her clothing style. Paul, prior to being
called by God, was a serious Jew. Read
his resume in his own words: “Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a
Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church, as for righteousness based on
the law, faultless” (Philippians 3:4-6).
Those laws we talked about in the last blog? Paul was keeping this as well as anyone
could. In fact, he was devoting his
entire life to keeping the laws.
Furthermore, he was “protecting” his religion by severely and radically
persecuting the new followers of Jesus.
Then, all of a sudden, in the midst of his life, Jesus showed up and
changed his entire world.
Jesus, who had already died and been raised to life, spoke
to Paul on his way to Damascus. He
instructed Paul to stop persecuting Christians and instead believe in Christ
and preach his message to the Gentiles – people with whom Paul would have
previously never associated. Additionally,
Paul was given a new name. Prior to the
encounter, his name was “Saul.”[1] So, all of a sudden, God has given him a new
religion, a new purpose, and a new name.
What a day!
Here is what I love about Paul: He wasn’t afraid to just go with it. God called him, so he changed his ways and
followed. In verses 15 and 16, he says, “But
when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased
to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my
immediate response was not to consult any human being.” I don’t know about you, but I care a lot
about what people think. I wasn’t even
able to wear a belt on my baby bump because my husband (who knows very little
about fashion for the record) thought it was strange. I cannot imagine throwing away everything I
had made my life about for the past 30 years and radically following God in a
new direction. I mean, it seems like the
kind of thing you should ask your friends about.
What is great about Paul is that he doesn’t ask his
friends. He heard clearly from God and
he followed the call right away without wasting the time to consult
others. I love that. I am all about asking for wise advice and
Godly counsel. I think situations exist
when soliciting opinions is completely appropriate. But, there are also times when God has spoken
so clearly that we need to stop dragging our feet or worrying about what other
people think and just follow.
There have been a few times in my life when God has led me
in a direction so clearly that I knew I didn’t need advice. Those were the times when confidently
following was the right course of action, and those were the times when I experienced
God most intimately. It is hard to go in
a brand new direction – especially one that might shock our friends or might
solicit some well-intentioned pushback from those who love us. It is not always easy to go where we are led,
but the times where it is not easy are also the times when the most reward is
likely possible. And if we are like
Paul, we will eventually hear it said of us, “And they praised God because of
me” (Galatians 1:24).
[1]
In high school, I had a friend who had a really normal first name and a
somewhat eccentric middle name. She
swore that when she went to college, she was going to reinvent herself and go
by her middle name. I don’t know what
happened there, but I remember thinking it was so strange to think people
knowing her by an entirely different name than I did. I mean, can anyone imagine if I just decided that
I would be called Marie and started introducing myself that way to
everyone? Try pulling that one off!
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