2-9-20 Gray Crayons

Quote: “Life without the Holy Spirit is a box of crayons with only using the GRAY crayon.  And that’s not really very exciting.  That’s like a gray, cloudy day.  But it’s the Holy Spirit that brings the rain that turns everything into green.  The trees express color and beauty and then the flowers form.  And God makes them grow.” – Gail Gordon

I was really struggling last week with a situation and one of my go-to people is my mentor, Gail.  The wisdom this woman gives – it’s usually crazy on target with what I need to hear.  And the best part about it is that I literally met her on the side of a hill…(wait for it!)…in Guatemala of all places!  Talk about a divine appointment.  We were two Americans who just “happened” to be in the same country, in the same city, on the same property, on the same day.  (And just a little plug for mission trips.  It doesn’t matter where you go – a different neighborhood, a different city, a different state, or a different country – when you get out of your place of comfort, you never know what’s going to happen…or “who” you’re going to cross paths with.  If God gives you the nudge, GO on that trip! lol)

Anyway, I was struggling.  Gail and I couldn’t connect by phone so I sent her a video and she replied back with a video in the way only Gail can.  She was trying to explain to me that not everyone will understand my level of faith and that’s okay.  All I can do is tell them about my faith and how beautiful God is and how it’s changed my life.  And that I can’t make them have a faith – it’s a freedom that we all have but must choose on our own.  God doesn’t want robots – He wants a relationship.  And that has to come from each person individually.

And then she started talking about gray crayons.

I realized what she was saying.  There are many people who believe in God and have sat in church or heard the stories of Jesus.  They believe it all did really happen like the Bible says.  But they are only experiencing a part of the Christian faith.  They haven’t tapped into the other parts of our faith that a lot of people in my inner circle and family have experienced over the past 7 years.  They are missing a huge amount of color and parts of life that you can only have when you take your faith past the “believe” level. 

I am a kindergarten teacher – I get paid to teach children their colors.  I can’t imagine taking a child’s brand new crayon box in September and saying, “Hi sweetie.  You’re only allowed to color with the gray crayons.  Mrs. Z needs to take all the other colors and keep them because you won’t be needing them.”  They would learn how to color just fine.  They’d learn pencil grip and how to color in the lines and even how to write their name.  But wow would their pictures be bleak.  They’d be missing something beautiful – COLOR! 

See, there are 2 ways to life live if you believe in God.  One way is believing but then living life the same way, week after week, keeping your faith to yourself, and not wanting more.  I believe God created us for more than that. 

I believe God created us to live in COLOR! 

Think about the story of Noah. What did God do to show Noah how proud he was of his faithfulness in building that ark and for how long he patiently waited for the floodwaters to recede? God said to Noah in Genesis 9:16, “Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” Instead of one or two colors, He chose to use the most colorful thing imaginable – a rainbow – to be the sign of how much He loves us! That’s why we get so excited when we see one – they are rare but always so special, just like Him.

Embracing and living life in color is full of healing and Holy Spirit goosebumps and truth bomb verses and prayer circles and surrender and worship music and deep relationship and new life!  You learn how to see God’s hand in everything.  You live life differently than you ever have before. You are truly a brand new creation.

Google says that currently Crayola has 120 different crayon colors.  I vow to spend the rest of my life surrounded by family and friends that aren’t afraid to live life in all kinds of COLOR!