Where does one begin where to think of the shape of your spiritual heart? How do you even come about knowing what you want? I don’t know about anyone else, but I think that the shape of my spiritual heart is my responsibility. The whole part no, that part is to be shaped by God, and God alone.

In a few people’s frames of mind some people think praying every once in awhile is good enough. That single prayer every so often will get you through forever, and your heart is all good. I was one of those people. I thought that “being a Christian” was just simply saying “Hey I'm a Christian. I know who Jesus is,”.

Tonight I finally understood what I was doing wrong. I was giving my “heart” in pieces. What I mean by that is I was only giving forth the smallest effort in my faith. You can’t do that! You give God your whole heart or none of it at all.

As a Christian I know what it means to feel lost (Not to say I am any different than you, I still feel lost a great deal of the time). Every single time I cried out to God, and I mean on my hands and knees ugly crying, I felt no comfort or a sense of “Hey it is going to be ok, I got this,”.

To me that was God’s way of saying, “Figure it out for yourself,”. Over the last couple of weeks in searching for God and a reason why I personally don't feel him when others did I was told something at the Sisterhood: Crowned women’s conference that took place at The Father’s House. I was told that, “God does not hide from us to tease us,”.

God does not hide from us at all. He knows us. Everything about us. God wants us to pursue him, so that when he confronts us we are in his presence. It is so very different to be in the presence of God than to not be.

Now let me get into what this event was all about. By this I need to focus on the word Crowned. What does it mean to be crowned exactly? To be crowned in my opinion makes you a king or a queen, something in the royal nature. You have a obtained a high order of respect from people.

The word crowned in this case is only the tiniest smidgen of the same meaning. The definition of crowned when you are talking about the spiritual sense is to be set apart for your holy callings of life.

There is a certain part of the whole crown thing that Christians think of, and that is the Jesus complex. Jesus was crowned twice. I bet many Christians didn’t even know that (I sure as heck didn’t). I am going to take you into a little bit more detail by what I mean.

Let’s look at the first time Jesus was crowned in John 19:1-3,

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face. -John 19:1-3(Biblegateway)

Jesus was given a Crown of Thorns(Shame). To some of you, and even me, this never was a “crowing” this was them teasing Jesus. Oh but it was. This my readers was the crown of our shame that was bestowed upon the eternal and perfect one. This crown was full of rejection, shame, betrayal, and pain. It was not his pain but ours.

Lucky for this little story there is a brightside. The second time Jesus was crowned in Hebrews 2:9,

But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.- Hebrews 2:9 (Biblegateway)

In this verse we see the eternal one given a Crown of Glory and Honor. This my friends is the crown of royalty given to the eternal one by God.

Now you may be wondering why am I talking about the crowning of Jesus, well we also have those crowns. Every single one of us has a Crown of Thorns(Shame), and a Crown of Glory and Honor. Our crowns are a symbol. This symbol is God calling us to be connected with him, and with others.

We can wear both of these crowns any time we want. There is also one thing to be mindful. The order in which we put these crowns on matters. Whichever one you put on first is how your life heart will be. It is the sequence in which you wear these crowns. How you wear the determines how the rest of your actions, thoughts, and relationship with God and others goes.

The crown of shame must be removed. When one wears the crown of shame they feel everything Jesus felt when e donned the crown of thorns. There is no reason for us to even wear that crown. It was already worn for us.

God has already fashioned our crowns. They are the ones of glory and honor. We choose which crowns we wear. When the Devil comes near to us holding his crown of shame we must look upon the eternal one and throw that crown away. We are only given one crown, and it is not the crown of shame.

For our royal crown will continue to fall until we remove our crown of shame. If we only wear the crown of shame we are not capable of doing what God has for us. Each of us are given a purpose, and the crown of shame does nothing but hinder that.

There are a few questions that can be brought up that I had that needed to be explained. How does one don the crown of shame? Three questions were given to me in reply,

• I am just a…
• I am only a…
• I’m not like…

You now that saying, "Only God can judge me?". Well every single one of those questions will lead you to the crown of shame.

We must live our lives in a state of vulnerability to achieve authenticity. When that is given we will be lead to the feeling of fullness, and from that we finally reach intimacy with God. Our intensity outside can only be made with the density of what we carry inside.

You are what your heart is. For so many years I thought God wanted nothing to do with me. I thought he made bad things happen in my life because he hated me. Now I know that all of those terrible things in my life God was trying to crown me to begin living up to my full potential. I unfortunately was wearing a crown of shame that must have been super fused to my head.

If God has designed my story to be this way he sure must be up to something ultimately amazing. My story is sure as heck not over. I may not like where I am today, but I am not in the same place I was yesterday.

We are all running the race of life that God has called us to run. What is really important that we must remember is that we are not running it against each other. We must help and encourage one another. We together are like the organs of the human body. We do not function properly without one another, or God. That was not the intentional design, and still is not.