Spiritual Journey, Part II
Mar. 14th, 2006 08:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greybetaWhen I was in the fifth or sixth grade, WWJD bracelets became immensely popular. “What Would Jesus Do?” became seen everywhere. It started infiltrating all sorts of merchandise, from earrings to t-shirts. It was “cool” to wear a WWJD bracelet.
I wore mine just like everybody else did. Mine was a blue bracelet with black letters. I wore it everywhere, and there several times when I had to look on the playground for it after it slipped off my wrist when I was running around with my friends.
But it was just a fad. The market became oversaturated with the WWJD label and there were too many people trying to capitalize on it. As quickly as the fad grew among the youth of the Bible Belt, it even more quickly died out.
Yet, I always wore my WWJD bracelet. I wore it through junior high, high school, and even the first two years of college. It was a convenient conversation starter, as I explained to many an international student why I wore that bracelet.
One day, though, I lost it for good. I was running in the middle of a rainstorm and lost it somewhere on campus. There was no way I was going to find it. I was a bit sad, but then I remembered something.
We once had a speaker at the Baptist Student Union who asked if anyone still wore a WWJD bracelet. I was the only one to raise my hand. The speaker was a bit surprised, but then he made a point that Christians cannot be marked by something physical.
I then realized that people were very surprised to find out that I was a Christian. To live the life of a disciple of Christ, people should be able to see the one that you reveal inside yourself. People weren’t seeing the one in me…they were seeing me.
Me, me, me. I was living a selfish life, one that did not indicate that I had made Jesus Christ the Lord of my Life. There was a disconnect that I had to resolve.
However, as a heretic, I have to ask, “Is that so bad?” What is so bad about being comfortable in who I am? I feel tension when I try to say that I believe Jesus is the only way to heaven, yet I feel relaxed when I say that Jesus is my Lord and my Savior but that there are still other ways to heaven.
Has Satan deceived me?
I wore mine just like everybody else did. Mine was a blue bracelet with black letters. I wore it everywhere, and there several times when I had to look on the playground for it after it slipped off my wrist when I was running around with my friends.
But it was just a fad. The market became oversaturated with the WWJD label and there were too many people trying to capitalize on it. As quickly as the fad grew among the youth of the Bible Belt, it even more quickly died out.
Yet, I always wore my WWJD bracelet. I wore it through junior high, high school, and even the first two years of college. It was a convenient conversation starter, as I explained to many an international student why I wore that bracelet.
One day, though, I lost it for good. I was running in the middle of a rainstorm and lost it somewhere on campus. There was no way I was going to find it. I was a bit sad, but then I remembered something.
We once had a speaker at the Baptist Student Union who asked if anyone still wore a WWJD bracelet. I was the only one to raise my hand. The speaker was a bit surprised, but then he made a point that Christians cannot be marked by something physical.
I then realized that people were very surprised to find out that I was a Christian. To live the life of a disciple of Christ, people should be able to see the one that you reveal inside yourself. People weren’t seeing the one in me…they were seeing me.
Me, me, me. I was living a selfish life, one that did not indicate that I had made Jesus Christ the Lord of my Life. There was a disconnect that I had to resolve.
However, as a heretic, I have to ask, “Is that so bad?” What is so bad about being comfortable in who I am? I feel tension when I try to say that I believe Jesus is the only way to heaven, yet I feel relaxed when I say that Jesus is my Lord and my Savior but that there are still other ways to heaven.
Has Satan deceived me?
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-14 03:06 pm (UTC)I think there's indeed many ways of living a good life. That the more spiritual, enlightened ones can make out for themselves what is wrong or right, the others need guidance. But both can fall trapped into fundamentalism, the former as leaders the latter as followers.
If that made sense.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-14 03:11 pm (UTC)Has Satan deceived me?
-~sure. If it wasn't this, it'd be something else.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-14 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-15 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-15 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-16 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-16 11:50 pm (UTC)However, people who are not enlightened, who are really living life with the idea of a deity in the back of their heads, need more "rules" to know what is good and what is bad, even though I don't think the division between both is that strict, as I believe everything is binary.
But, the first type of people can often become overwhelmed with their knowledge, even if it's basic, and start laying out rules for the the latter kind. When they get stuck in their own righteousness, they start behaving like dictators, while the others, in dire need of guidance, look up to them.
It doesn't always have to happen like that, and not every dictator or cult leader is enlightened. But I do see that as a theoretical outcome. Remember, for me, the future is always a possible outcome of the situation of the now that is always moving while only the past is fixed ... Hope that made sense, I'm again about to go sleep but I think I'll have as less time for LJ tomorrow as today.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-17 12:47 am (UTC)Correct me if I'm wrong.