Those Things, the Very Things: The Collision of Passion and Faith

(Written for those grappling with the purpose of their passion, and delivered as an oral presentation, therefore, the rules of grammar do not apply)

I am a storyteller, and today I want to share my story with you. Imagine a small girl, 8 years old.

Head full of ideas, stories, questions.

So many questions.

A love for creativity, pretend, escapism.

Imagine the same girl, sitting rigid in a church pew.

Religion, legalism, rules, rules, rules.

Her ideas multiplying in colors, textures, light.

Her church, black and white.

Two worlds repelling each other, no harmony or cohabitation between the two.

But she picks up a Bible, and the person of Jesus explodes off the page.

He walks and talks kind of funny. Not like those pew sitters.

He evades his mom and dad, flips over tables in the temple, "works" on the sabbath.

Wherever he goes, there is a disruption of peace, leaving a wake of color, light, and transformation behind him.

The little girl is very confused.

Her church, this religion, so strict, so seemingly lifeless.

The person of Jesus: creative, compassionate, a counter cultural rebel.

Her big ideas, her desire for reformation, her push back on the

inconsistency,

hypocrisy,

the constriction of her church,

all booed and silenced by her contemporary pharisees.

“Things have been done this way for a long, long time.” She is told.

“Acting? Hollywood will surely lead you to destruction.” They say.

“You shouldn’t ask questions, doubt is sinful.”

But she encounters Jesus, and she quite resonates with him.

And she begins to wonder…

What if Jesus sets the precedent for critique-by-creating as he...

Enters a pharisaical world and starts to weave a new narrative by parable. As a storyteller.

He sculpts mud over the eyes of the blind to produce sight. He multiples fish and loaves. As a tactile artist.

He uses his voice again and again across all of Israel to inspire, to convict, to breathe life back into dead corpses. He silences the world's leading wisemen with actual wisdom. As a speaker, preacher, teacher.

He leads a group of 12 as they collect, compile, edit and share the good news that would later go to print. As the chief editor and author of the most important piece of literary journalism - the Bible.

He creates the most cinematic moments captured centuries later, only by the imagination. Walking on water, calming storms in a single moment, ascending into heaven. As the greatest director and producer.

He steps into performing the most vital protagonist role, who reaches history’s most tragic all-is-lost-moment, as the Son of God dies at Calvary.

Leaving the most horrifying cliff hanger, as the only possible cure for all of humanity was put in the ground.

Only to resurrect, living out the greatest comeback story that’s ever been told.

Could it be, that Jesus comes as the ultimate writer as he is the living Word?

Could it be, that Jesus came, to demonstrate what it means to be a creator in the flesh?

That he, and not so subtly, walked throughout the earth in his 33 years and showed where tactile artistry, storytelling, and creation have their place?

Could it be, that Jesus was the first master communicator, as he came to communicate the Father?

Could it be, that the seed of passion towards reformation, communication, speech, words, music, images, was planted by the creator himself into his own creation?

It is more than probable.

Could it be, that the little girl with the big imagination could, as she sought after Jesus, image him more fully, by using her God given gifts and passions? Could those things, be the very things, that draw her closest to the heart of Father and beckon others to follow?

He does not make mistakes with his own creation. He is an intentional creator.

The passions he gives are purposeful, the creative gifts he administers, are intentional. They are the very way, by which we communicate Jesus to a dying world that desperately needs him.

I was created to tell stories.

I was created to tell His story.

That, is my story.

-B