rebelbase Woodley

I haven’t written since we moved to Kentucky?… Imagine that.  Well I have had a few decent ideas worth posting but haven’t made the time to get it done.  Like all things that we do not act on, those ideas have faded away.  But this is one idea that I didn’t forget, mainly because I am still driving around KY illegally because I have yet to replace my lost (stolen?) license.

About three weeks after we moved to the rolling bluegrass hills of Kentucky I lost my wallet somewhere inside or outside of our local Dairy Queen.  When I realized it was missing I drove back to the scene to see if anyone had turned it in.  The round trip took forty-five minutes because our ‘local’ Dairy Queen is fifteen minutes away.  By the time I got back home empty handed, I had one of those blog-inducing sudden realizations.  It went something like this: Losing my wallet and all of it’s contents was the final step in transitioning from a Texan to a Kentuckian (Not to worry this is only a temporary transition).  It wasn’t until I lost that last connection to my old home that I could really start to embrace my new one. 

All of this also went to a deeper level of my personal image of myself.  That sounds profound but it really isn’t.  It is pretty simple: I started to realize that much of the image I held of myself was connected to my role in ministry, my home town, and my relationships.  And none of this in a good way.  I had come to see myself as part of those things and lost sight of my true identity as a son of God and brother of Christ.  It is funny because just about a year ago I preached on this same topic with some illustrative help from The Lion King.  The long story short, somewhere along the way Simba, the future heir to the throne, forgot his royal roots and responsibilities and forgot his true identity.  His life was being lived well for a fun-loving, vegetarian lion but that was not who he was destined to be.  He was the rightful King and until he remembered who he really was he would not be living a life of truth.  For me remembering my true identity meant breaking down a lot of titles that I had accumulated: pastor, Texan, Aggie, even husband and father.  All of these things were starting to define me more than the most important title: Follower of Christ. 

So losing my ID was just a step to help me remember my true ID.  All of this also came down to of all things this blog.  The title ‘Rebelbase Woodley’ is rooted in the name of my former youth group at TWUMC.  I considered deleting the whole things and declaring that ‘chapter’ of my life over.  The truth is that I can’t do it.  It isn’t over it is a part of who I am and always will be.  So in some really cool ways God has been redefining how I see who He is making me to be and it is exciting and scary all at the same time.