So Messed Up

Growing up I was constantly in trouble. Most of the time I was in trouble for picking on my little brother or the rarity of beating up on my older brother. My parents had certain rules we knew not to break, and usually they were easy to understand. Rules like do not hit your brother, no cussing, clean up after your self, but there was one rule as a kid I never understood. Why did mom and dad only give me a 100 foot stretch of sidewalk to ride my bike?

In both directions of my parents’ house were fire-hydrants, which served as our boundaries while in elementary school. We knew not to pass either one of them without permission from mom or dad, but that did not stop me. I saw the boundaries as a road block. I wanted to ride all the way up the hill, of our street, and speed all the way down to the other end, but that was way outside the boundaries. I did not realize that those boundaries were for protection, because it was not safe to be outside mom or dad’s line of sight, at that age.

Whenever I broke a rule, I was usually punished. A few minutes in the corner or a whipping on the butt and then the punishment was over. Especially after a whipping I did not feel like giving my parents a hug, but they always did. Mom and dad wanted to make sure that I understood that they still loved me. The rule I broke did not break the relationship I had already established with my parents.

Also while growing up I thought God had a list of do’s and don’ts. I tried to follow these rules, but the lying one especially was too hard not to break. I constantly felt like I was letting down God, and disappointing Him. My mind had this assumption that God did not want anything to do with me unless I followed every rule. What I did not realize is that these rules were for protection.

Currently I am trying to read through the bible in a year. As I read I constantly see this relationship aspect of God come out. Even in the old testament we see people walking closely with God, Enoch Genesis 5:21, Noah Genesis 6-8, Abram/Abraham Genesis 12-25, Elijah 1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2, and many others. The gospel of Jesus was an invitation to know God.

God is not waiting for me to mess up; He already knows that will happen. God however desires a relationship with us. I often hear people say I don’t feel God today; usually this is because they see God as a rule manager. The more rules we have broken that day or week the more distant God feels, until our Sunday fix. The bible was never about Sundays, that’s only part of it. The bible is about God’s desire to commune with us, and the first step is that of salvation.

Sin is detestable to God, because it is the distrust of God’s way and the relying on our own. Jesus died on the cross to wash away that sin. Only then can we truly have a relationship with God. What is so messed up, is that we get caught up in the rules and not the relationship.