If you asked me who my favorite Bible characters were I would always say- hands down- Daniel and Joseph. I just admire those guys! They seemed unflinching, steady and predictably strong in every situation. I mean Joseph freakin gets sold into slavery by his brothers, then thrown into prison! Yet in every situation he chose to embrace it and make the best of it instead of wallowing in self-pity. In the end, he becomes the second most powerful man in the world, and he uses his power to bless the people under his authority. Dope!
Then there’s Daniel, who is constantly standing up for his beliefs in a foreign and violent government. Yet the thought of giving in and putting the laws of the land above God’s laws doesn’t even seem to cross his mind. Even when he’s staring a legit lion in the face…or…the fangs. Even then he he’s unshakable and predictably all for God.
These guys were rockstars! And for the last foreveryears I likened myself to them. I’ve been through dark times like a pit or a lions den… I’ve decided to stand for what I believe despite the very different cultural ideas I live amongst… I hope to use whatever influence God gives me to bless the people around me. Yeah! I’m am SO like Joseph and Daniel. Or so I thought…
But while I was chatting it up with God the other day He began to touch on the subject in a less than comfortable way for me. Oh yeah? You’re like Joseph and Daniel huh? Stable? Unemotional? Predictable? Always know the right thing to say? Sought out by leaders in your culture? Yeaaaah…uh huh. I scowled, not liking what He was implying. “Well…I mean…I’m sort of…stable. And some day…I want to be sought out by top influencers….and…crap…” I sulked for a bit as I realized for the first time that Joseph and Daniel were not who I was like- at all. They were who I WANTED to be like.
“Ok so who AM I like?” I retorted. I could tell He was getting a big kick out of all this. He knows better than any the imaginative and romantic heart I have, and how crushed I was that I was in fact very different from the characters I most admired in the Bible. Well lets see. Who do these words describe? Passionate. Emotional. Fierce. Unpredictable. Unconventional. Nomadic. Adventurous. It was pretty easy to guess. They identified someone in the Bible that I always kind of…avoided. And now I knew why. It’s because whenever I read his story I couldn’t help but see past his strengths and fixate on his glaring weaknesses. Maybe it was also because everyone ELSE always liked to study this guy, and I hate to jump on the band wagon, but I never really wanted to get to know…David.
Yeah David. Even though my favorite book of the Bible is Psalms…this guy can tick me off. I’ll tell you what gets to me. He’s loyal and steadfast to God and his BFF Jonathan, but not to one woman! Why can’t the ultimate warrior of the Old Testament also be the most faithful and heroic lover? No. He had several wives. He had no control over his heart. Seems like he would have been an amazing husband if he would have put some of the effort and time from the battlefield into his marriage…or written some of his poetry to his bride! But no, we just hear about one gal he married cuz she happened to be a princess…and another cuz she seemed like a smart girl and was recently widowed…and don’t get me started on Bathsheba. David was not a model husband, and from the chaos that ensues with his kids, he was obviously not a great dad either! He was emotional and impulsive and would rather ride off on his horse than face confrontation in his closest relationships.
So yeah. When everyone else is wowing over the story of Goliath I’m thinking “Yeah…nice highlight…but this guy wasn’t consistent and dependable & immune to temptations like Joseph…” But now as I was chatting with God I realized that all my beef with David was due to the fact that the weaknesses I saw in him hit a little too close to home. All of his shortcomings sounded a lot….like someone I know. (Except maybe swapping the horse with a red truck.) How many times had I had to reign in my heart from infatuations with guys I knew wouldn’t be a good match for me? How many times have my emotions rushed me in to awful decisions just like David’s? How many of my friendships have suffered because I didn’t have the guts to confront them on things that were damaging them?
It was no use. I could now see plain as day that I had avoided David because God was right- I am David. But as beautifully and gently as He always does…He turned the conversation towards His real point, which is never to condemn. He forced me admit that David was human just like me and anyone else, and then to look at the beautiful things about David. David knew how to get away in time with God- just God. David’s heart was first for God, and then for his people. David was a fierce and heroic warrior, but he was also a tender and matchless poet. Hmmm. Warrior, poet. Martial Artist…song-writer. God was getting to me.
I couldn’t deny it. And I then realized that David’s weaknesses were also his strengths…as it is with all of us. The only way we are able to keep them as strengths is by staying constantly connected to God, and allowing Him to guide us in them moment by moment. Even when we try to do good there is always an underlying selfish motive if we aren’t doing it out of a response to His love. David’s romantic heart, in response to God’s love, birthed the riveting and raw work of art we know as the Psalms. David’s romantic heart, apart from God’s love, birthed death and chaos. The same wild heart lives inside me, but it can be used for rescue instead of rampage if it is guided by His love; if I constantly remember my need for Him.
But the best part of discovering my Bible-twin was…that phrase. As much as I tried to always avoid David I could never avoid that phrase. More than I coveted the character of Joseph and Daniel I coveted the phrase that God spoke over His servant David: a man after God’s own heart. David wasn’t God. He was still human. He still messed up. But his heart was always soft enough to be affected by God. And God was affected by him. David…the powerful, unbeatable soldier…had a heart of flesh that was moved by the Love of God. And so despite the realty that I have to be wary of the weaknesses in our impulsive nature, I now count it an honor to be likened to David, the man after God’s own heart. And I can now see it clear as day, that the two primary thrusts of his heart are the consuming passions of mine: romance…..and rescue. Traits of a warrior poet.
Many people don’t understand my passion for Martial Arts. They see it’s danger and they don’t see it’s connection to my art. But there’s a part of me that has finally come alive, and I can’t quit and just watch that fade. I just can’t. I will never be content to just be the safe little artist writing and singing beautiful things. And I will never be content to just fight and never express to the world the mysteries that unfold in my mind. I just can’t. I am both. And sometimes they don’t make sense together. How can I pursue music if I’m getting my face punched in? How can I pursue fighting if half of my training time is in music? I have no clue. And I cant tell you at this point whether I’ll end up in a ring, or simply teaching self-defense to other girls. I don’t know whether my songs are to bring healing to a few, or entertainment for many. My music flows out of me when I’m soaking up His Love, and when I train I see the faces of thousands of my sisters enslaved in brothels that must be rescued to know His Love. The path that I’m on is unknown and it doesn’t make sense. But I’ve never quite made sense, even to myself. This girl who likes working on cars and going to tea parties just confuses the crap out of me. But thankfully I don’t have to make sense to anyone but to the God who created me. The thing is…He has a habit of creating things that have never been seen or imagined before, and I’m one of them.
Romance and rescue are the themes of my life, and music and martial arts are the inhale and exhale of my dreams. Unless God sees fit to replace my breath, this is how I’ll breathe.
