Always the Rule Follower:

I was reading my devotional book by Micah Tyler, “Walk by Faith.”  This has been a very good and loving devotion.  I have been reminded a lot about God’s love, ways that I tend to walk away from God, and how I can grow in faith. This last devotional really struck me because it is something I personally struggle with and that is being afraid of following the rules.  I am not afraid of following the rules in the sense that I am scared of the rules, but rather I am afraid of what will happen if the rules get broken. I don’t want people to get upset and I don’t want to disappoint anyone, especially God if I end up breaking the rules.  

Micah Tyler talked about his oldest son who was the ever rule follower.  His oldest son, as a young child, whenever they would go to a new place would ask what the rules are, so that way he wouldn’t break any of them.  Micah mentioned this made it easy when it came to parenting in many regards.  He didn’t have to worry about getting teacher phone calls or having a lot of problems at home.  He was confident in his child’s ability to go to a new place and be respectful of his surroundings and people occupying the space.  

However, he did bring up his concern about not wanting his son to be so fearful of making mistakes and not feeling God’s grace.  God’s grace covers all of our sins.  He is the one that we need to ultimately be good stewards of the word and his messages, or in other words rule-followers.  He is the one that we need to be cleansed.  We are only going to do right with his guidance and his love covering us.  One quotation from this devotional that I want to highlight is “For far too many people, a relationship with Jesus becomes more about trying to not mess up than focusing on the freedom and abundant life he offers.”   Just like Micah Tyler’s son and so many other christians, we can start to focus on the law as opposed to love.  We start to become more legalistic than realizing how God’s spirit should make us joyful just to continue in his grace.  

Even the Pharisees in the Bible were far too focused on the law than they were on loving the people that God had set before them.  One of the most known and influential stories of the Bible is the story of the Good Samaritan.  However, if you have never heard this story, it is a story of one man who has been beaten and hurt on the ground as well as robbed. This man needed someone to help.  Two religious leaders were walking on the same street as him and decided to cross the street to avoid helping.  It wasn’t till a Samaritan, who was culturally an enemy of the man beaten, came and helped the man to the best of his ability. His best, happened to be awesome because he had him cleaned up, a place to stay, and others involved.  He went the whole nine yards.  

I want to take note about the two religious leaders who decided to walk on the other side of the road.  They were the ones that were pushing the law and telling people to not make mistakes, but then missed the perfect opportunity to practice what God’s law was actually teaching, which was complete and utter love for both God and one-another.  When we are so overwhelmed avoiding all mistakes and making sure we have every i dotted and t crossed, we may start missing the opportunities to love the ones around us.  Or we can start to really bring ourselves down.  We can start to be insecure and anxious that we still miss the ways that God is working in our lives and have provided us ways to grow closer to himself and be his servants.  

I have personally always struggled with this.  I have always been a rule-follower.  I like to follow the rules, I like to know I am doing the right thing, and I like to know that I am not disappointing anyone.  This has actually landed me in a lot of negative self-talk whenever I do make a mistake or don’t follow a specific rule perfectly.  One of the main reasons I decided to start going into therapy was because of my negative self-talk.  My therapist and I have had to talk quite a bit about the way that I speak with myself that then leads to a lot of anxiety and insecurities.  It has been a rough road, but I am growing more and more in realizing that God loves me and is helping me to continuously grow both to be closer to himself as well as a better person in general.  

Obviously, this does not mean I think we should go out and try to sin.  We shouldn’t go out there with the intention of breaking the law both man’s and God’s, but this means that we shouldn’t have the fear of sinning and of making mistakes.  There are going to be times when we will mess up or blunder.  We are sinful people.  Obviously and hopefully, this is not on purpose.  However, we can now know that when we do make a mistake or we do the wrong thing, we don’t have to be filled with shame.  We can know that God loves us even amidst our sins and the poor choices that we can make.  

To sum up my thoughts as well as this devotional, I am going to leave you with a verse from 2 Timothy 1:9 which says, “He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.”  We have been called to be rule-followers.  We have been called to be holy.  However, we can remember that God is the way that we are holy.  It is through him that we can follow the rules, and it is then his grace that will cover us when we inevitably fail.  Throughout this week, I will be praying you will be reminded of the freedom that you have in Christ through his grace.