What does your faith look like?

Earlier this year I was at Hillsong for an annual women’s conference called Colour. Simply put: three days of an intense spiritual high in a room full of oestregen. One of my favourite things about Hillsong would have to be their passion when it comes to worship through music. There are literally thousands of women packed in the one room, all singing to the same God. It is the most incredible feeling being surrounded by so many others who share the same belief as you. But that isn’t what made me tear up while singing.
As the musicians were up on stage, beautiful music and voices filled the auditorium with women standing everywhere with their eyes shut and hands raised – completely and utterly engrossed in the moment and in love with their God. I glanced around, smiling and taking it all in. This is what Heaven will be like – the epitome of love, passion and happiness. Kind of like a jar full of skittles with all the green ones removed, but better. So. Much. Better.
As I continued to look around the room, my eyes were drawn to the women in the front row of the seated area next to the sound desk. It was reserved especially for those with a disability, namely the deaf women. There was a lady signing all the lyrics to the women so they could understand and sing along. My eyes immediately filled with tears as I watched them so passionate and enthusiastic about worshipping. It completely blew me away. I could hear the drums, the guitar, the keyboard, the synthesiser, the singers, the voices of the thousands of women – everything. But they could hear nothing. It made me wonder whether their disability was their catalyst for such passionate faith. So often we get distracted by all this artificial, ‘white noise’ constantly surrounding us that we lose focus of what it really means to love God or worse, we lose focus of God, period. A part of me felt terrible for enjoying the beautiful chorus of sounds I could hear so easily, sounds that they would never have the chance of experiencing. But then another part of me was filled with this overwhelming sense of joy, compassion and awe. They were proud of their faith and their faith was incredible. I want my faith to be like theirs – complete, unhidden and made manifest among others.  
I was on the train this afternoon making my way home from Uni and after three hours of back-to-back classes all finishing before midday the first thing I was looking forward to was sitting down on the train with some food and my headphones in – Uni students, ya feel me? It is a common pet-hate of all commuters – train, bus, plane, ferry, yacht, you name it – when you finally take a seat and get comfortable and all of a sudden what seems to be the only audible thing is a baby crying or a kid testing out the highest decibel he can reach without his core body temperature resulting in a physical combustion (not sure if that’s an actual thing). Well the latter, yeah that happened to me today. Usually in this situation I would preferably want said kid to wipe me out in his path of obliteration, but today was different (well, at least almost). I took my seat on the train and after about five minutes I heard this young boy, probably five years old, make his way down the stairs to my carriage and sit by the window providing commentary on everything that was happening outside to his Mum who was upstairs sitting down holding on to a stroller. 
“MUM LOOK THERE IS A FOOTPATH. DID YOU SEE THE BIG YELLOW, BLACK AND BLUE SIGN? MUMMMM, IS THAT OUR STATION? OH, IT’S NOT OUR STATION MUM, WE DIDN’T SLOW DOWN AT THAT ONE. WHEN IS OUR STATION?” This went on for a solid ten minutes, with thirty-second intervals if he was feeling generous. I turned up my music louder and tried to zone out before I seriously started considering testing out the train’s emergency stop system. A few more minutes passed when the little boy piped up again, but this time with something I could not help but smile at: 

“HEY MUM?”
“Yes bub?”
“I LOVE YOU!”
“I love you too darling.”
“NO, MUM, LIKE I REALLY REEEEEAAAALLLLY LOVE YOU.”
“I really really love you too.”

I looked around the carriage and every single person who had heard it had a small smile appear on their face. It made me think, what if our faith was like that? Complete, unhidden and made manifest among others. What if we weren’t ashamed to tell others how much we loved God? What if we were proud of our faith? 
Ask yourself, what does your faith look like? 
Keep smiling. x

0 thoughts on “What does your faith look like?

  1. Unknown says:

    Hi Jess,
    Great read, you truly have a gift. I hope the desire that you wrote down – “I want my faith to be like theirs – complete, unhidden and made manifest among others” becomes the prayer of your heart and that God answers this request in many amazing and powerful ways.
    Take care and God Bless.
    -Beez.

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