stop what you’re doing & be wild.

i urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called
ephesians 4:1

it’s final week for most of my friends, & simply put– we’re all drowning in stress. maybe you’re not in college. maybe you’re just stressed. maybe you have a hundred small responsibilities piling on top of each other until you can’t see over them. maybe you’re looking at a tidal wave approaching– sitting in your world that’s about to be dismantled & just waiting for the breaking. maybe it’s already broken & the wave has long since crashed. maybe you’re sitting in a thousand little broken pieces of what once made sense– broken boards of fear, shards of disappointed expectations, remnants of grief.. whatever it might be.

i think there’s this expectation when you start following Jesus. at least, that’s how i always saw it. i was shown what the greatest model of a christian was: she was sporty, he never said, “shit”, she had no tattoos or piercings, she never made a ‘that’s what she said’ joke, he listened to Hillsong United in the car, she had quiet time every morning with coffee, he got bonus points for playing guitar. i was shown this list of right & wrong, what made you closer to God, what made you a worse christian.

this became concerning, because when i was 18 & started following Jesus, i already had a few tattoos, a nose piercing, quite a few scars and a pretty decorated vocabulary. i was always told about these rules– the things i could say yes to, the things i should say no to, the things i should probably just not go near. i read ephesians 4:1 through that lens. i got to know the christian life, but i was no where near knowing the heart, breath & wild spirit of Christ.

that was a long intro to talk about this:
being wild.

dead week took everything good & right in the world & spit on it. on top of the 15 page honors papers, presentations & exams, i was going through a lot of heart//personal stuff. i hadn’t felt that stressed in my life. it was the kind of stress that makes you feel like someone else– just a body operating to get to the next day.

i remember that something really good happened, & i was absolutely terrified. i was terrified, because it didn’t make a difference for me. i think God gives us a lot of different quirks. one of mine is how madly in love i am with life. it’s honestly weird, & i’m pretty positive i inherited it from my crazy father. i believe everyday has the potential to be worth a storybook if we pay enough attention to it & have ever open eyes. every moment deserves our wonder. i mean when i see a really pretty flower, i tear up from being so happy (that legit happens sometimes). that’s the level i’m talking about here. so when a very small good thing happened, & i didn’t feel any differently, i was shaken.

i went on for a few weeks like this, & i have never felt less like myself. i realized i had lost the word, ‘wild’ in the crowd of stress. i searched within myself & couldn’t find it. i couldn’t feel or see or hear Jesus. it can be a terrifying thing to have Joy in your life once you feel its absence. life becomes a lot less live-able. you feel less.. just less of a person. you’re alive, your heart is beating, but it’s not full. i sat with my losing heart & asked what the hell was going on. where was my wonder?

then this verse came to mind:
i urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called

thoughts from my past came back– you need to do this & this & this. check the boxes of christianity off & you’ll probably feel better. but participating with Jesus isn’t a box you can check off. Jesus doesn’t give us boxes to check, because then we’d have to focus on the task rather than Who we’re doing the task with/for.

i thought about Jesus– about what He’s like. i figured a good place to start looking at Who He is began by observing what He’s made. i thought about the fun things in life: skydiving, the view of an open road, shark diving, losing yourself in a song, bouldering, first kisses, surfing, backpacking countries, skiing, falling in love. These things are inherently and relentlessly wild; these are things God created. am i so quick to forget? –the heart of the Lord is a wild heart.

Jesus exists in the hurrying heartbeats, the sweaty palms, the butterflies & the adrenaline. This is the character of God: the wildness of life was so important to Him that He engrained it within our DNA. We are wired to respond to the wild heart of life.

so what am i called to? i am called to be like my Father. i am called to be wildly in love with life. i am called to take life up on its offer to dance without refrain. i am called to sing a new song– for there will never be a scarcity of inspiration for song. i am called to jump out of planes & swim in roaring seas. i am called to slow down while i eat to give each flavor the spotlight. i am called to take advantage of the fact that i have a heart that’s beating. i am called to write a story worth reading out of my life everyday.

how do i do this when it’s dead week & my spare time is spent blinking long enough to pass as sleeping? how do i do this when my heart is broken my another person? how do i do this when stress is knocking on my door with the ferocity of a girl scout who hasn’t sold a single box of thin mints this season?

i walk in a manner worthy of the calling. 

i write my 15 page paper. i allow myself to feel the hurt. i work that 8 hour shift. i serve coffee to that guy who just insulted me. i have that hard conversation with whoever it is. i pull an all nighter for my final tomorrow (i’m literally doing that tonight…again).

but i do these things in a manner worthy of the wild calling. 

i live through the stress with the greater perspective of the wilder things of life. i still have fun in the midst. there is always time to be a little irresponsible. leave town for the day. one of my favorite things to do is go to the end of a street & flip a coin: heads is left, tails is right. see where you end up. get coffee for that friend you know is hurting. buy flowers for your apartment. have a damn dance party. write your mom a letter. watch a funny movie. jump out of a plane if you can. do something that scares you. do something for the sake of spontaneity & don’t tell anyone else about it– let it be a secret between you & life… a secret you & life can laugh about the next time breathing becomes a task.

don’t let the petty, all too often accepted excuses kill your wild nature: that is a slap in the face to your Creator. you were created to enjoy this life while you have to endure the pain… so, enjoy it.

if you know me, you know the importance of Narnia. i love how Beaver describes Aslan when Susan inquires about him. She asks is He’s safe. Beaver replies:

“Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course He isn’t safe. But He’s good.. He’s the King.”

Later while Lucy sees Aslan leaving, Mr. Tumnus tells her:

“He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.”

oh, how knowing my King is wild makes my heart quicken. He is wild- so i can rejoice- but He is good- so i can have peace in trusting Him. We get to know & be deeply known by a wild, wild & deeply good King. When i look at life again, what do i see?

life is a great scavenger hunt. throughout it, the wild Lion hides sacred moments of beauty, of chaos, of indescribable goodness. we get to partake. while we are stressed & hurting & healing & breaking & building– we get to partake in the wild dance of living. discovering bits of rich goodness as we’re getting through.

so, be stressed. hate your accounting class. be overwhelmed. be hurting. be a little scared.

but, by God, be wild through it all.
stay wild.
never let the threat of darkness steal your vision of the untamed light.

hold on to that spark of curiosity when you look in the direction of the mad unknown. let it fill you with wonder.

look unflinchingly towards the light– it’s the glimmering of a wildfire that sets our weary hearts ablaze. may its blaze keep us warm when the world is cold.
may our hearts never cease being wild.

“We need the tonic of wildness”
Thoreau

photo by the incredible Jenn Talesman