People talk about “checking your brains at the door” when you go to church.

At some point, it was a popular idea that Christians weren’t smart.

That only superstitious people believed in God.

(And maybe it still is a popular idea with the people who comment crazy things on my Facebook page.)

But then there were books like “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel, an intellectual who set out to prove that the Bible was wrong and couldn’t.

So he decided to follow Jesus.

I’ve heard so many stories of this! In fact, this is part of my pastor’s conversion story.

It’s proven that believing in the Jesus of the Bible doesn’t require turning off your brain.

But does it require turning off your heart?

There’s also this idea that God isn’t whimsical. That He disapproves of whimsy.

I strongly disagree with the idea.

But with how much I was encouraged not to turn off my brain when it came to my faith, it was easy to close off my heart.

• When I asked God to guide me in making a big decision, I struggled to trust His answers. What if it was my own heart leading me astray?
• When I felt God pushing me to start a ministry for people without homes, reasonable people told me that the task was too big. So I gave up.
• And the biggest heart issue that kept me from growing in my faith is that I didn’t feel God’s love.

Let me tell you, if you can’t feel God’s love, it’s much harder to follow Him.

God is love (1 John 4:8).

So when I couldn’t feel God’s love…what I couldn’t feel was HIM.

God is love…

When God saved me from an eating disorder, the biggest thing that He taught me was to feel His love.

Food is a gift from God. In order to accept His gift, I had to accept His love.

I’m a firm believer in the fact that God made each of his masterpieces (i.e. humans) unique.

God made me whimsical and wild.

He made me a wellspring of creativity. He made me a dreamer and a dancer and a deep friend.

But He also made me analytical. So much so that it gets in the way of my writing!

I’ll be drafting a novel, and suddenly I have to describe a character’s face. I can’t figure out how to do it. “The main character’s eyebrows moved inward 0.2 inches and upward by 0.175 inches” doesn’t seem to cut it.

But someone told me this week that God loves my brain.

She told me that my analytical side means that when God brings me into complete freedom, I’ll know how I got there. I’ll be able to help other people move from living in fear to living in love with God.

And PRAISE GOD, because I’ve prayed for that.

I take God literally (in a whimsical way)

I like to take the Bible literally in small, whimsical ways.

For example, because Revelation says blessed are those who read the words of this scroll out loud, I read passages of Revelation out loud in my bedroom.

One time I read a passage in Isaiah that says to look at the stars.

Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
    Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
    and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
    not one of them is missing.

Isaiah 40:26

After I read this, I went to my window and looked out at the stars.

I know the point of this passage is arguably the “I am God” part of it and not the “go stargazing right now” part of it.

BUT for me personally, it’s grown my relationship with Jesus to “lift my eyes and look to the heavens.”

I think about who created the starry host. And I smile to myself, because I’m being whimsical.

Because that’s how God made me. <3

Application

So how about you? Are you wild and whimsical?

Do you struggle to find the balance between your heart and your head? I’d love to know what you think about these ideas.

Leave a comment and I’ll respond as soon as I see it!