What's my worth?

The only thing I own of any worth,

is the name of Jesus Christ.
("I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." gal 2:20)


A friend of mine recently said about me that I seemed like "a woman without a country."

Usually I don't spend a lot of time thinking about me, or at least it has been my goal to not do so. Thinking about my identity in a way opposed to that already provided in scripture. Some people in this world love to give their name and then a one-liner to describe themselves or to identify themselves with some cultural icon or value or goal. Like all those dumb bumper stickers that say things like "boy crazy" or "cowboy up." Not to say that putting on cowboy hats and boots is something lacking intelligence or the persona of it; honestly. I can assure you my honesty, by the fact that I buy all my jeans "boot cut."

Shortly after becoming a Christian, titles and associations started becoming offensive for my own sense of self. I don't do things this way any more, although I used to a lot before.

What was my friend trying to say by saying that I seem to be without a "country?" I think I can interpret with a single word to describe it: "untamed."

That word "untamed" has a lot of positive associations these days in our world, mostly for the wrong reasons (when describing people). There are good and bad aspects to being untamed. A good aspect would be honesty. Not trying to be something that you aren't. A bad aspect would be recklessness. An incapability to follow any guidelines, and fit in and treat others lovingly.

Am I flitting here and there without alighting? Maybe that is what he meant. More likely he meant that nothing seems to hold me down, contain me, define me... I am generally as of yet proving myself to be not yet satisfied.

Having a lack of satisfaction and being dissatisfied are two different things, though. I could reject food and water altogether as something to ingest for living, for example. They can not keep me satisfied for a long time. Hunger and thirst are met in a moment-by-moment basis. The effect of needing more, returns, and needs to be dealt with again. I get satisfied, but only for a time.

I remember the poem one of the boys in the class of the "Dead Poet's Society" movie wrote: "It's like a blanket that is too small. You pull and tug, and tug some more. But when you finally cover one part of your body the other gets exposed. No matter how hard you try to arrange it, it'll never work--you just can't get warm."

I attribute this quality to everything and everyone I have ever known in my reality, with the exception of Jesus Christ as He has personified the Godhead.

How do I feel about this aspect of my being, my being untamed? I say, let me go crazy. Yes! Let me go; let me be what I am, boldly even. If there are unreconciled, confused, unbelieving, disobedient aspects of my life, I am not afraid. Let me explore these. Let me express them completely, on one condition: I express them while in the presence of my God. Another words, I acknowledge the existence of God to want Him to be involved in translating my pieces into the light, and making meaning of why I am the way I am, for the purposes He wants to carry out on earth.

If there is such a God as that, then He would truly deserve my praise and evangelism. What man, what force, what revelation could take such a wild, unruly thing and make it quiet and humble? Such a picture would not say so much about a motto for me, but a motto about Him. Can He succeed to reconcile all my parts?

So far, the answer is yes.

Take each moment. If Jesus really doesn't strike me as interesting in the moment, that's okay. I am free to walk away. But where exactly could I go? I could go so far as to rewalk the path that initially led me to Him. I know where I have been. Done that; been there. When everything is consumed and the embers are left, there I find Him. He is still there, at the core of my heart. I cannot deny this. I already tried. I tried to ignore the fact that I had a simple belief in him for 4 years, when I wanted to live my own way. It didn't work. I couldn't deny that Jesus simply was the solution; the One who satisfies.

So what if I walk away. For a moment. For a day, for a year. Isn't this the measure of a great God? I have come to think so.

The more untamed I find out I am, the greater the number of times I have found it proven to me that He satisfies, unlike all else.