Life is being sifted into an order of priority for me these days. What seemed so important a year ago is no longer in my sites for attention. Yes, it's true I'm getting older and crabbier and less tolerant of nonsense and involuntarily driven into the wilderness of old people's health issues....but that isn't what has shifted my priorities. It is because spiritually I feel as though I'm freer and more real than I've ever been since I gave my heart to Jesus at the age of three. What has brought about that change?
I am travelling "light" now, that's what. The Lord has unburdened me of the "trappings" I thought were so necessary to be a "devout Christian". I didn't realize that such "devotion" really amounted to mere religiosity, and not much more. I have shed my cloak of self-delusion, thinking I was so Christ-like when I had so little of His character chiseled in me! I have opted for something more real in my walk, and it is the Lord's doing. I thank Him!
I have gained my freedom from the fear of people's opinions of me. I am free to live for an Audience of One. I live under the watchful eye of Him to Whom I answer...no one else, because no one else knows my heart or cares whether they break it or not. I do not live for rules...even Biblical ones. I live for the One Who is the Ruler. It is a far more personal, transparent walk.
Do we really think it's the "rules" that make us a Christian? Where have the rules gotten us? Does the world not grunt at the hypocricy of our religious rules -- the same rules we preach about but seldom practice? Do we think they don't see it?
I don't want to be a rule-driven Christian, caught in the trap of religious servitude and emotional hypocricy. I am not afraid to be viewed as a rebel. I'm in good company, because it's how the rule-driven religious people viewed Jesus in His day. No. I want to be a Spirit-driven believer, more intent on obeying and pleasing my Lord than those who wish to set themselves up as my judges. I have only one Judge to fear, and He is so very different than the self-righteous ones who judge according to their feelings alone.
I have come to a valley of peace in my soul, where I have learned that I am to walk with my brothers and sisters, not for them.
That is what God has been doing in my life lately. And how I praise Him for it!
