Looking at my life, specific conversation pop out in my mind as having great significance and shaping the course of my decisions. Usually these conversations happen with one of my greatest friends, and I am blessed to be surrounded by great thinkers in every social circle. One of my greatest friends from High Point University, had a conversation with me in passing one afternoon that blew my mind.
We were walking down the promenade in opposite directions, and ran into one another while I was heading to my residence hall. She was rocking heels, a skirt, sweater, and an awesome Anthropologie necklace. I began to ask her where she purchased all of her adorable clothes, and inherited her fantastic style. While discussing the heels, she told me, "Alexa, guess what I just learned?" I began to get very excited, as we shared similar passions and knew that this recent revelation would be interesting to me as well. She continued, "in my women and gender studies class, we learned that heels (which were originally designed by men), were crafted with the primary intent of slowing women down." When women wore heels, they could no longer walk with ease or rapidity, and trailed behind men everywhere they went. I was shocked. We continued to discuss how we always found heels as a powerful accessory. We could elevate our height, and the sound of a stiletto heel repetitively hitting the floor was slightly intimidating.
But this conversation continued to ring in my ears. Lindsey Queener is a thinker, so I knew that these words were not spoken on a whim. And, I reminisced on this conversation two weeks ago, as I attended National Speakers' Association conference. I wore heels the first day, and suddenly realized that I was getting less done. I was moving slower, my feet were in pain, and my productivity was pathetic.
Do we ever allow ourselves to "put on" a hindrance? Often we purposely put on, or take on, something that leads to a hindrance in sharing the gospel. For example, I know that if it wasn't a direct hindrance for me, I would walk everywhere with headphones in my ears, listening to music. Yet, I also realize that I would miss precious conversation with many that I pass, and ignore the noises of the "daily grind" of my peers. When we sit back and think about all the choices we make to take short cuts and create a better experience on the human level, let us also realize how much we miss out on in the spiritual realm. By making aspects of our life comfortable, stylish, simple, or popular, we miss out on the opportunity to sacrificially live.
Hebrews 13:15-16 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise-- the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.
The Bible commands us to make sacrifice a way of life. It must be a continual shedding of the "self" for a pursuance of the Spirit. Last night I heard a phenomenal message in which it was stressed that we must overcome small temptations regularly in our lives to practice facing the deep-rooted sin, and enormous temptation that we inevitably will be forced accept, or reject. Psychologists have stated that it takes twenty days to overcome a habit and change your behavioral response to daily life tendencies. On the human level we will have to begin practicing sacrificing the self in the small things. When we sacrifice daily human "comforts", we train ourselves on how to overcome our greatest temptations, and inevitably clear hindrances from our lives. We can then begin practicing Christ-like living.
1 John 4:9-11 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
I began this blog by discussing the slowing of high heels. Now, with the word picture aside, what really slows you down? What keeps us worldly? By calling ourselves Christians, we don't just declare that we are of the Church, or that we love to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and help guide the lost. We identify ourselves with Jesus- with His death and His word. We identify with Him, meaning we cannot possibly identify with the world. Are we allowing the world to enable us? Do we allow the world to make our lives easier? If we succumb to the world, we strip away our identification of "Jesus" on our lives.
Finally in the message last night, my eyes were opened to a screaming truth. We as Christians cannot give so little to the One that gave so much. We cannot give half of our hearts to the One who wholeheartedly gave Himself up for us.
Let us analyze our daily lives, for they make up our total lives. If we identify with Jesus, we must aim to be fully Jesus. We cannot please our culture, allow ourselves to be slowed down, yet still identify with the Messiah. We must a conscious, continual effort to live sacrificially.
It may not be the heels that are slowing you down (sometimes I would argue the opposite!). But, we all have something in our lives that slows our pace for Jesus and creates a distraction. Sacrificial living of the flesh, inevitably results in living for the Spirit. We only have two options, and I pray we continually and consistently choose the eternal.
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