I am Devoted

I am Devoted


I am devoted.
When you look at me
That is what you see.
Someone devoted
To something greater
Than myself.
I have given
My time,
My money,
My energy
At times even
My Happiness,
To be devoted.
I try to do right by people,
Do right by God.
I try.


I am devoted...
To something.
I carefully examine
Not the mirror,
But the image in
The picture frame.
My eyes look out,
But not up.
Make sure the me
That people see
Goes down easily.
Don’t cause them to stumble.
Don’t cause them to question.
Don’t cause them to examine,
The parts I ignore.

I am devoted?
To what?
Am I devoted to God?
Or is it something else;
A constructed Idea
Of what I think
God would want
Me to be,
Say and do.
He would want me to give:
My time,
My money,
My energy,
My own well being.
Sacrifice it all,
To make the...
Picture clean?

I am devoted,
But not to something greater.
It is myself
It is my ideas
My righteousness
My holiness
My self

I am devoted
To a lie.
The picture doesn’t capture,
The truth inside.
The mirror reveals,
What I am.
I am imperfect.
I am a sinner.
I am broken,
Incapable of fixing myself.
I am darkness.
I am dead.

I am devoted
To a staged picture
That hides the truth
Underneath a smile.
The mirror.
The mirror shows me
Who I am.
It reveals the truth,
About me,
And You.
The mirror shows me
God.
Not the fabricated god
Who cleans
Pictures and images,
But a God who sees
Everything.
Sees the brokenness
That exists even deeper
Than the reflection shows.
And a God, who in spite
Of a knowledge
And understanding
Of who I really am,
Covers me with blood.
Not my own,
(Like I deserve)
But His only Son’s.
And as He washes me,
Not just the pictures,
Images,
And reflections
Change,
But I change.


And Now,
I am devoted.
Not to an idea,
But to a person.
A person who,
In spite of me,
Sacrificed everything
For me,
So that I
Could be forever
Devoted 
To Him.

I am devoted to Christ.

Actively Believing

Silver dollars are one of the most frustrating coins. Not the cool gold ones they keep trying to come out with, but the old, slightly larger than a quarter, Susan B Anthony silver dollars. They aren't worth more than a dollar, but for some reason I can never bring myself to spend them. You might be wondering why this is such a dilemma, and it is because I have more than a few of them. So now the question becomes where did I get all these shiny coins? The most honest answer is, the Tooth Fairy. Apparently the Tooth Fairy had the same dilemma as me and instead of spending the silver dollars it traded them for my old teeth.

It was only after many exchanges of teeth for silver dollars that I started catching on to the realization that something was fishy about the Tooth Fairy. One time I lost a tooth and instead of telling my dad about it, I just quietly put it under my pillow. The next morning I woke and as I stretched back to life I remembered the tooth, and sure enough I looked under the pillow and there it was. Not the shiny coin, but my tooth. I told me dad and he started laughing and then informed me that I had to tell him because he had to tell the Tooth Fairy to come. This did not help my mistrust for the tooth exchange system in America because I knew my dad was cool but not cool enough to know the Tooth Fairy.

I have been studying the Gospel of Mark lately and in chapter 5 Jesus says "Do not be afraid, just believe" (Mk 5:36). This has prompted me to think about what it means to believe something. I have always thought of what I believe as my internalized belief structure or the ideas I hold true inside my head and carry around with me. I often view belief is an internal matter that affects the way I think and also the way I talk and what I profess, but perhaps it is supposed to be something much much more. I think Jesus is trying to take us a little deeper than this surface understanding of believing.

Another element that is tied closely to this topic of belief is that of trust. If I claim to believe something I should undoubtedly trust in it as well. There have been a number of changes in my life recently and through it all I am continually trying to trust God rather than myself, and it is hard to take that next step past what we think and know into the active realm of what we do. But belief, if it never affects the way we act and conduct ourselves is the most useless thing of all. It is really easy to think and claim we trust God, but until we actually let go of the control and pass it off to Him, it is meaningless.

When a tooth escapes from a child's mouth, what he believes about the Tooth Fairy is irrelevant unless they trust it enough to but the fallen tooth under the pillow and fall to sleep with the anticipation of what will greet them in the morning. This is the same with God. What we think or say about God can only take root and find meaning and value if we trust God enough to let it actually affect what we do. Because unless we let go of control and hand it over to God; unless we start acting upon our internalized beliefs does it even matter what we claim to believe?