I think about a
lot of things all the time, most of which I can’t remember, and I’m sorry I don’t
get more of ‘em written into my blog, but recently I’ve been thinking about
some stuff which seems to just keep coming back up with more and more pressure
each time so I better get it out before it explodes with very loud noises (I
hate drawing attention to myself like that).
First
I’ll share a testimony that took place in my life almost two years ago now
(geez, tempus fugit). My dad and I had gotten back from a hunting/camping trip (we
actually bagged something big this time, yay) and a regional church meeting in
Calgary was approaching. During the camping, since we were out in the woods, I
had let my beard and hair grow out with reckless abandon for about a month, but
in my particular church fellowship it is a common standard for men to have
short hair as well as be shaved. I however had grown attached (in the
non-literal sense) to my hair growing the way it was. This was not the first
time I had encountered this type of situation, but it became the first time I
truly sought the Lord for the truth in it. In my church it is taught from the
Bible (1Cor. 11) that men should have short hair, the no-beards thing (not in
the Bible) was added to that for reasons unknown to me. My pastors always
taught that it was a sign of submission to God’s order and the ministry, but I’ve
been in scenarios where it can manifest by other spirits as well (not the Holy
Ghost). I’ve also had the experience before where I would let my hair grow, not
out of rebellion or disobedience, but to just see what happens and prove it’s
real worth. The Bible does also say to ‘prove all things and hold fast to that
which is good’ in 1Thes. 5:21. I would have chalked it up to simple innocent
curiosity, but it is a Biblical principle. Before the meeting came, I had been
in a few normal church services with my small, local assembly where my state of
hair wasn’t causing any trouble after my trip into the woods, but a church
meeting was going to have plenty more people, people who may have questions or
concerns about it. On the one hand, I didn’t want to bring any disharmony into
my fellowship, on the other hand, I didn’t want to put on something that was
just going to be an insincere façade, on the other, other hand, I do want to be
obedient to God and his order, and the other, other, other hand, it’s obvious I
have too many hands. My mind filled with questions and ideas as to what I could
do about the situation, and amidst the ensuing mental maelstrom I pleaded to
Jesus to help me resolve it – whatever He wanted me to do I was willing to do
it. I continued to toss ideas back and forth in my mind, so much so that I
became a bit dizzy: ‘Maybe I just shouldn’t go, but it’s a meeting, of course I
should go’ ‘well, if I shaved and cut my hair, that wouldn’t cause any
problems, but wouldn’t I be doing that to be some kind of “people-pleaser”
which isn’t right either’ etc. But in spite of the chaos, God heard my plea and
sent me some grace. I stepped back and took a look from the outside at this ‘storm’
and asked myself (or maybe it was God, Himself, asking me) where is every
single one of these thoughts coming from, I knew the answer from the confusion
in my mind and the anxiety clenching in my stomach, it was fear. (2Tim 1:7) ‘He
has not given us the spirit of fear, but of love, and of power, and of a sound
mind’ was the scripture, and ‘you don’t have to listen to any spirit that’s not
God’s’ was the lesson, that flashed through my thoughts. It was not difficult
at this point to say to the spirit fear that I was done listening to whatever
it had to say, and my mind went dead silent. It was as if I had spoken with the
authority of God, Himself, and the cowardly spirit in my mind knew it. After
about one second of this blissful calm, I heard the words ‘Just go to the
meeting and enjoy yourself’ spoken softly into not just my mind but my heart as
well, and the peace that passes all understanding welled up within and
surrounded me; I knew it was the Lord. Needless to say I did as I was bid, happily,
too. I went to the meeting in Calgary with some other members of my church within
the next couple of weeks, I heard great preaching and testimonies, sang some
songs, ate waaay too much of their delicious food, and quite thoroughly enjoyed
myself (insert nice long pause here for dramatic effect). Interestingly, not
long after this happened, my own pastor started preaching about identifying
spirits. Knowing what spirit you’re in contact with, drawing power from, and
operating in, became his theme message for the entire following year and is still
brought up on a regular basis, even though I don’t believe he’s actually heard
this testimony yet (I’m about as quiet in person as I am on the internet, scary
right?). That’s just one more piece of proof that this message did indeed come
from God.
Since
that event, I have been content with whatever length my hair’s at, but I don’t
go for long without thinking back on it: the confusion and the fear, my
willingness to do whatever God would’ve asked of me, and His simple, clear
direction that filled me with joy and peace. These are all vital elements to
the story. I have been doing some meditation, scripture digging and excavation,
and I’ve found a few things very interesting. First of all, I remember that, ‘Jesus
said “by this all men shall know that you are my disciples, that you all dress
and wear your hair the same way”’ is a misquote. He actually said, ‘by this all
men shall know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.’ He
didn’t even bring up the scriptures or doctrine. Though there is another place
in the Bible where Jesus talks about his own relation to the scriptures, that
is in John 5:39-40, he is speaking to the Jews of his day and saying ‘search
the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, but they testify
of me and you will not come to me, that you might have life.’ That day, amidst
the cogitative turmoil, I didn’t turn to the scriptures of the Bible, but I did
turn to Jesus, which is the crux of the whole thing anyway. Jesus said, ‘I am
the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE’ and so everything we need can be found in
him.
I have also been
searching through the Bible for scriptures that specifically mention any laws
or rules regarding people’s hair. I have found nothing other than the one place
in the letter, 1st Corinthians. God never gave short-hair-for-men
and long-hair-for-women as commandments that his people must follow, at least,
not that I was able to find anywhere, so, as always, you should look for
yourself. The Bible did make it clear however that it was a traditional custom among
the Jews for people to wear their hair this way and also for men to grow beards
unstyled and unshaven. As such, the
typical picture people have in their minds for how Jesus looked during his
ministry with shoulder-length hair and a somewhat-short finely-trimmed beard
is, in all likelihood, highly inaccurate, although there were times he liked to
challenge the traditions of the Jewish elders and told them that they ‘leave the
weightier matters of the law: judgment, mercy, and faith, which were meant to
be binding and not to be left undone.’ I believe that when God gave me my
instruction, He didn’t omit anything truly important because that simply wouldn't make sense.
I do remember though,
the scripture which says that ‘all scripture is inspired by God and is beneficial
toward teaching, toward exposure, toward correction, and toward discipline in
just-togetherness.’ I should probably point out that with the scriptures I use
and ‘quote,’ I am reading from a very awesome computer program which you can
download for free called the interlinear scripture analyzer, which shows the
original Hebrew and Greek words (it even orders the Hebrew words from right to
left, which is so disorienting and fun), the best translation for every individual
word as well as the concordant literal version, so it’s useful if you want to
better understand what exactly they were actually writing about in these verses
like this last one I used: 2nd Timothy 3:16. I know there must be a
reason Paul wrote that scripture in 1st Corinthians 11, so I looked
more deeply into that and found some intriguing stuff. One of the first things I
noticed is the fact that Paul himself did not refer to these things as
commandments or laws, but as traditions... ugh, I hate traditions, though that
is only the logical consequence of loving to try different things for
myself and finding things that work yet often don’t fit with traditions, and so
these things I love will often seem weird, unusual, strange, non-standard,
unorthodox, and unconventional, but, as I said, I love them and I truly believe
that this is a God-given love. The next thing I noticed was a simple phrase in
a verse I don’t believe I’ve ever heard any minister preach (if I have, then I just
don’t remember), ‘Judge in yourselves.’ Much of what leads up to this in the 13th
verse is a lot of symbolic and cultural (maybe?) explanation. But ‘judge in
yourselves’ sounds like we should be able to decide for ourselves what we think
about all this stuff; that, and what the next verse says, ‘Doesn’t nature
itself even teach you that it is a shame for a man to have long hair?’ can only
provoke the n-o word from me. Nature teaches me no such thing, about guys with
long hair or women with short hair. In myself I can only judge… that there must
be more to this scripture that I’m just not getting, so I kept studying. Soon though,
I found the crux of this whole chapter. Paul said it, ‘In giving you
this charge, I applaud you not, for you are coming together not for the better
edification of one another but for discomfiture.’ I do not know everything
about what was going on in the Corinthian church, but the letter of 1st
Corinthians was basically written to address a lot of these problems, and that’s
the point of this scripture; it was written for a specific purpose in Paul’s
ministry, which is probably why I don’t understand some of the things he said.
Inversely, if Paul were alive today and could see my church and our culture,
traditions, etc. I’d bet good money he would have plenty to say about it but
also that it would be different things he’d say. The point, if I haven’t been
clear already (entirely possible) is that the church should be coming together
to edify the Body of Christ, in the breaking of spiritual bread and the
mingling of spiritual wine. What we look, or even sound, like is not the issue
and should not be stressed. Personally I have undergone far too much literal
stress just for the length of my scalp’s hair follicles, which is far more
patently absurd than I can describe. The important things are how we treat one
another and what spirit we worship-live in.
One final thought
(shouldn’t be as long-winded as the others) is about Jesus himself, who and what
he really is. Jesus is the son of God, the perfect example, the spotless lamb
sacrificed for the world’s sin, the quintessential/living word of God, and my
personal savior. There is nothing above him except the almighty God, our heavenly
Father. Jesus described himself as many things though I still think the most
profound of which is ‘the way, the truth, and the life,’ something I’m still
learning little by little and day by day. I know I can search the scriptures
inside and out, memorize them backwards, and learn every single word from every
possible translation, but if I don’t find Jesus, I’ve found nothing, and
certainly not the way, the truth, or the life. Many claim that the Bible is
true in all matters God-related and in that it is the final authority, but the
Bible, though a tool greatly used of God, whose inspired messages are on its
pages, is still just a book, as good and as true as whatever you can get out of
it. I’d hope that whenever someone reads the Bible, they get Jesus out of it,
but I know that that is not always the case unfortunately. Consider what
happened on the mount of transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-8). Jesus took his
disciples there where they were shown a miracle. On the mountain, Jesus was
made to shine like the sun and there appeared with him both Moses and Elijah,
who I can only imagine embodied everything the Jews thought they knew about God
from their scriptures and related traditions. When the enthusiastic disciples
thought to build a place of worship there for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, a bright
cloud appeared overhead and a clear voice spoke out of it, ‘This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.’ After apparently provoking God
almighty to have to speak to them directly, they were scared witless and fell
on their faces. Jesus comforted them and told them they needn’t be afraid, and
when they lifted up their eyes (obvious symbolism here) they saw Jesus, and
only Jesus, standing before them. The moral of the story is, quite simply, we
need to follow Jesus, his words, his example, and his spirit.
I could go on a
bit more but I think I’d rather encourage you to look at and study these
scriptures for yourself, and meditate on following Jesus. God bless!
