I cannot believe how long I have been away from here. Things have just become so crazy hectic off at school, but at least the semester is almost over. It’s unbelievable, though!
Anyway, enough about me. You all came here for a story behind a tattoo, and I have been brainstorming what I would write about this tattoo for a while now. Consider yourselves “warned”: this simple tattoo holds some great deep truths and implications, and I am so excited to delve into it with you all!
It has been amazing for me to feel God’s guidance in my life, bringing class lectures, chapel messages, personal reflections on tough situations and this tattoo of a friend all into my life to grow me as a person. Though I love tattoos, I love people a ton more, so if God could use what I write to encourage someone or change someone for the better, I would be overjoyed.
So, this tattoo belongs to my friend Brittany. I met her just a few months ago when school started because we have a class together. We clicked early in the semester because she and I are very similar in that we both have strong desires to be stay-at-home moms and we both are captivated by tattoos!
A little background on her: She grew up in a pretty conservative household where tattoos were often associated with “bad people,” with the exception of her uncle who had some. But as she grew up and started interacting with Christian peers at school who wanted tattoos as well as listening to some pastors who had them, she said she realized tattoos could be a positive thing. So senior year of high school, she and some of her guy friends decided that they would all get tattoos after they graduated. Brittany said the guys all chickened out, but she didn’t; she got a tattoo that she had been thinking and praying about for a while, one she knew would be “timeless” in its relevance and truth.
Her tattoo is the transliteration of the Hebrew word for “jealous,” which is “qanna” (spelled “קַנָּא” in Hebrew and pronounced “kan-naw”). In Exodus 34:14 this word is used as a name for God in a commandment to the Israelites (and it stands true for believers today), reading, “Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”
For those reading this verse apart from the context of the entire Bible, it may be awkward or confusing. For those who read the Bible—Old and New Testaments—in context of the whole, they can see that the Bible is a redemptive love story. It begins with man (and woman) in a beautiful fellowship with God (Genesis 1-2) before Adam and Eve act out of selfish ambition and disobey God (Genesis 3); but even amid this bad decision, which led to a break in man’s relationship with God, God made a promise of restoration (Genesis 3:15), and the rest of Scripture follows that path toward God bringing humanity back to Himself, chronicling the failures of man in light of the great love, grace and mercy of God. Therefore, for Brittany, I and (hopefully) all other Christ-followers the declaration that God is a jealous God—an infinite, relational being who, in His love, is jealous of us giving more love and honor to anyone but Him—is awe-inspiring.
If you are still struggling to see how jealousy could be a positive thing, I totally understand it’s a concept that is not seen much in society. But think about it: emotions, in themselves, are neither good nor bad; rather, emotions carry the potential for either a good or a bad response. But it is our choice how we respond. For an example, something could make me extremely happy, but is that always a good thing? Couldn’t I do something selfish, harmful and/or inconsiderate due to my happiness?
(Are you still following me?...just checking! I know I’m getting deep here, but I believe this concept is so important to consider, because it could impact all our relationships with all the people we care about.)
So—with all that said—though jealousy often precedes horribly selfish acts in human society, the jealousy that God exhibits is not like that at all. His jealousy is a perfect, righteous jealousy that leads Him to selfless, sacrificial responses. This truth is seen all throughout Scripture, and one of my favorite representations of it is in the book of Hosea.
Basically, in that book of the Bible, God calls one of his prophets, Hosea, to establish a marriage that would mimic God’s marriage-like commitment to and love for His “bride,” the people of Israel. Though Hosea’s wife is unfaithful (just as the Israelites had been to God at that time, worshipping other gods), God tells Hosea to pursue his wife and legitimately buy her back out of the prostitution she had sold herself into. Hosea did all this, not out of his own desire, but out of God working in a mysterious way to show His love for His people. God lays out His own plan to bring His people (referred to as “her” and “you” in the passage) back to Himself in the second half of Chapter 2, saying:
“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. … In that day…you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’… I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord. … I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.’” (Hosea 2:14, 16, 19-20, 23)
So God, who created each and every one of us, is jealous for us; and, with that, He is pursuing us constantly. I love how Brittany summarized what having the word “qanna” on her wrist means to her. She said:
“For me, it’s a personal reminder that I’m always loved and I’m always being pursued because He is jealous of me. God is not just flippant like, ‘oh, yeah, I kind of like you, so I’m going to save you;’ no, it’s like ‘if you give anyone else more attention than you give me, then I’m coming after you,’ not in a wrathful way, but in an ‘I love you,’ ‘I’m not letting you get off this easy’ type of thing.”
I know that none of us will be able to love others perfectly as God loves people, but what an ideal to strive for! Wouldn’t society be so different if people weren’t so prone to giving up on each other, if people would sacrifice to love others, if people would look more seriously into God’s Word in order to try to emulate His perfectly expressed emotions. Anyway, even though there is more I would love to say, I’ll leave you with that.
I hope you have a blessed week. Please let me know what you think in the comments below. And if what I have said has struck you and you would like to learn more about God’s love and His plan of restoring a personal relationship with you, please visit the link below to read directly from God's Word (made available in several languages):
http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/
