Christianity is a weird and awkward thing. The more I love Jesus and see who He really is the more I realize I want absolutely nothing to do with religion.
“Religion” literally means, “to bind or tie.”
I have returned to bondage over and over again in my life.
I have listened to the voice, and I have parroted the voice that says:
You are not praying enough.
You need to read (and translate and study and apply) the bible more to your life.
You need to give God more of your life.
You are not doing enough to meet the needs of the world.
You are not telling enough people about Jesus.
You need to make sure you avoid anything that looks sinful.
You need to give everything you have, not waste a single second, always be trying to become a better human being.
Sounds like good advice…..right?
In the past, it sure seemed like it. I used to give that advice to others when they struggled. I used to preach that advice, believe it, try to live up to it, but now the grace of God has revealed it for what it is: disgusting.
It adds links, one by one, to the heavy rusted chain around your neck, choking all life out.
When you grow up in the mindset that these things, listed above, are necessary to be “in”— to be loved, to be worthy to gain an eternal reward— it is hard to be released from those sort of shackles.
It feels safe inside the bondage of religion. It feels easier to try to be under the law and attempt to gain some sort of right-ness with God by the petty little things you do, but it is just worthless.
So worthless.
Then, to complicate things even more, I brought “THE WILL OF GOD” (Duh, Dun DUHH! Pause for dramatic music) into the whole matter.
(Now, I cringe at that phrase, thinking how many lives have been ruined by attaching that label to a selfish, evil, or just plain lame decisions and events.)
As if it were not enough to try to avoid sin and “get closer” to God, I believed if I wasn’t close enough I wouldn’t be able to hear His voice and understand what he wants me to do with my life. Oh the pressure.
This is especially treacherous when you are eighteen and you have to have a complete life vision and plan from the LORD all laid out or you will end up a drifting loser and make all the mistakes your friends did, living some mediocre life in the suburbs with your eyes glued to the television and the world will end up dying because you did not fulfill your DESTINY.
Or, at least that is what I believed. Maybe I was crazy.
So I fasted, cried, read more books, sought consul from “more mature” Christians, prayed, and screamed:
“God just tell me what to DO!!”
I lived in fear that I’d marry the wrong person, have the wrong job (or be in the wrong ministry, because the thought of having a “normal” job sounded like suicide,) move to the wrong country, miss out COMPLETELY on God’s “perfect will” and waste my short life, ending on my death bed with regret. DUN DUN DUHHHHHH!
(All these thoughts were religious, returning me to bondage.)
The great irony is,
The will of God is simply that I live in freedom, in love, in Him.
It was never hidden until I was “good enough” to see it, it was always right there for me to see, my eyes were just closed.
I am so grateful for a God that rescues.
He wouldn’t let me stay in my chains playing with my filthy rags. He gently led me to a place where I realized I had nothing.
I saw my neediness. I saw my failure. My own stinking humanity.
I saw the worthless and futility of it all.
I came to see I can’t do a thing, and that’s the point.
But there is a but.
“Then who can be saved?”
“With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible. “
Yes. Hallelujah. LIFE. This is the Good News.
There is no fear in that. There is no pressure. There is no condemnation. There is no “getting it wrong.”
As I my eyes have been opened to what is behind the veil that has been torn,
I see all things have already been done, all things are already mine, and it changes everything.
I don’t need to ask God what His will is, it’s right there! For me to start believing all that I have in Him.
Yet at times I still choose not to believe, to allow emotions and confusion to take place of the reality of His life in me. When I can’t see where I am going, when I don’t know where I am going to live or what I am going to do or how I am going to make it, I go back to my old cry, “God just tell me what to DO!!”
And then, I hear it, a whisper:
“Here’s what to do- let me love you.
Stop trying.
Realize this is a gift, this life, this right-ness with me.
There is nothing but Grace, it is not a concept, it is ME.
I have given you all things.
There is nothing you can do to be closer to me, I am as close as your breath.
I will take you on this beautiful, wild adventure if you just stop trying to figure things out.
You don’t need to return to bondage by trying to be better, you never will be.
Let go of that.
Let me live through you.
Let me love in you and out of of you.
Then you will live in joy. You will not know guilt. You will be free from fear.
Your life will be abundant because it will be my life.
You will not look at your petty sin because you will look at me.
You will dream big and have the courage and motivation to follow those dreams.
You will not need to constantly stop and ask me which way to go, because you will know I am the way.
You will stop asking for answers and rest in my love.
You will stop asking for a plan and realize, this is the only plan- to know me and be known by me.
That is my will.”
*For a great biblical teaching on this, check out Andrew Farley’s Message Click on “Recent Messages” Then “8-28-11- Finding God’s Will.”
Or e-mail me- writeeveryday@gmail.com and I’ll send it to you.
Also you should read a blog by Don Miller, because he is awesome.
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