Runaway Spirit or Wandering Spirit?

I once walked away from Christianity as I knew it. I didn’t exactly denounce Christ as my savior, but I let go of every single thing except the fact that I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior and was therefore saved – my anchor point of remaining a Christian. I joked (because it was uncomfortable to talk about) that I was going AWOL from the Army of the Lord. I wanted, no needed, to let go of everything and get down to the basics. I stripped away everything that felt limiting and tried everything I found curious. I wanted to learn for myself what it meant to be a Christian because my teachers and preachers had taken Christianity and packaged it in manipulation and contradictory philosophies bound with illogical rules that were not Biblical. This action didn’t please Daddy, although he wasn’t around for the peak of my departure. He was around when I started questioning things and even challenging him on things. Most often he responded to me calmly, matter-of-fact-ly (I did that on purpose), and honestly. Occasionally he reacted from past traumas from past experiences with “church-folk”. But never did he use Christianity or our Baptist beliefs as a weapon or a tool to sway me in any direction. So when my questions turned to a need to physically explore, he told me it was okay. He said that I have a wandering spirit and though he didn’t say it explicitly, he believed that because Christianity, specifically Missionary Baptist was the truth and the way that I would return.

At the peak of my departure from Christianity as I knew it, I had a couple of close friends who were “church friends”. Our friendship was based on living according to Christian principles and almost served an explicit purpose of keeping each other on the straight and narrow. While I knew they were very pious, I didn’t learn the nature of our friendship until it ended, you know 20/20. When I was exposed to the leaders and preachers that they followed and called anointed, I began to see more of the hypocritical and manipulative tactics used against parishioners and their ignorance and this caused fissures in the friendships. I was told that I have a runaway spirit – among other demonic spirits that had supposedly overcome me.

Wandering Spirit was a compliment and Runaway Spirit was an insult. Well, maybe Wandering Spirit wasn’t intended exactly as a compliment but it was something that my father saw in me and accepted, allowing me to choose to embrace it if I wanted. Is that really true? Yep. Runaway Spirit was a term to encourage me to get back on track, whatever that was, and it felt derogatory and manipulative. Is that really true? Eh…

I’ve only shared one situation here in which I was called a Wandering Spirit by my father and a Runaway Spirit by others but both of those identifiers have a long list of items behind them. And my behavior has been both Wandering and Runaway at times. When I learn that something I’ve always believed is true is flawed in some way, I need to test it for myself. I need to get to the root of the truth, the unadulterated truth, the pure truth, and I need to be right – not insisting that people agree with me no matter what but to know the thing that is true and right. When something is no longer serving me I let it go – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but always completely. When a person is crushing my spirit or rejects the parts of me that they don’t particularly like or understand, I remove them from the closest parts of my spirit, my soul, my heart. And anything that gives me bad vibes – a space or a person – is something I leave quickly. If I wander and don’t return to the thing I wandered off from, have I runaway?

Runaway spirit is an identifier, placed on me by limiting and closed minded people, probably with what they believe to be good intentions. I’ve left it behind.

As a little girl Mommy would always tell me to stay with her whenever we entered a store. If my big brother or sister was with us I would beg to go with them. Sometimes she let me but often she insisted I stay by her side. I think that every single time we entered any of the stores we entered during all 13 years I had her in my life that I managed to get lost in that store to some degree. Eventually I mastered the return quickly enough to not cause too much trouble but it all depended on what caught my eye and prompted me to wander off. Sissy has told me that often she turns to say something to me when we’re walking and suddenly I’m not there. And there have been plenty of times that I’ve had to stand still and be found in a store, like I did three weeks ago. As an adult I’ve truly felt like telling a stranger that I lost my sister in a store so I can get some help. But it’s always because I’ve needed to know more about something I’ve seen. And I always return to the original purpose of our outing.

Runaway Spirit or Wandering Spirit?

Iam Regina Lynette. I am a Wandering Spirit.