Finding Your Truth

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If you've ever heard me say, "You have to find your truth," I was probably being ironic. 

I like to say it to belligerent toddlers in the midst of semi-comical meltdowns.

Truthfully, it's not my favorite saying because it implies that Truth for you can be one thing and Truth for me another. But the truth is we may have beliefs that are mutually exclusive, and one or both of us must be wrong. 

And yet, God is a god of diversity. And just like He paints the world we see with colors and textures too numerous to count and too glorious to fully appreciate, He paints the world we don't see with an equally grand palette, inspiring and drawing us to Him in different ways. The way he speaks to you may be completely different from the way he speaks to me. And that is okay.

Just the other day I read a beautiful post from a Facebook friend who felt like God was calling her to cover her head when she was out and about and especially during prayer. She felt like doing so was drawing her into deeper obedience and intimacy with Him. 

The post was a timely read because I'd just been studying that very topic as it pertained to the early church. While the Apostle Paul is quite insistent that women should cover their heads during prayer (1 Corinthians 11:5-6), this is an admonition that nearly every Christian woman I have ever met conveniently ignores--including me.

My belief is that this requirement (along with many other things in Paul's letters) was more cultural than universal, and as such, my head is uncovered more often than not. This is not (at least not currently) an area in which I feel convicted. 

I think it would be possible for me or someone like me to read a post like the one I read and bristle a bit or scoff a little,  even though the tone of the post was not at all self-righteous or judgmental. Whether it's a more liberal or conservative take than our own, sometimes we just don't know what to do with something different. But what the Lord is showing me is that these differences are beautiful. We all have our own love language, and the amazing thing is that God is fluent in each one. 

Despite being raised in the same house with the same parents, my five kids are wildly different. While I love them all equally, I don't love them all the same. And they don't love me the same either. My relationship with each one is unique, and while I aim for fairness, my requirements and expectations of each one are a little different, too. 

I do not doubt for one second that the woman covering her head pleases God in doing so. But that does not mean that we all must do so to please Him. He meets us in the shallow and leads us to the deep, but we're all in different bodies of water. My deep might look different from yours, but if we're both going, we're both growing. And that is a beautiful truth.


 







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