"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what the Lord requires of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God." (My emphasis added.)
These words have been posted in various places throughout most of the homes I've decorated. Yet, only this last month have I taken the time to dwell on each of the three "rules" of that verse and let them meander through my methods to a deeper "heart" place than my simple brain alone can offer me.
I'm a rule follower, which is both a blessing and a curse. (The concepts of "blessing" and "cursing" are a simultaneous theme, actually, but that's a different blog.) Being a rule follower requires me to have at least one rule-maker. However, just like shoes, coffee mugs and jewelry, I am a collector of rule-makers. Did you know that all good collectors border on hoarding? If I'm honest, I've been a rule-maker hoarder.
Oh, I only collect the best, so don't worry. I don't collect your average gas station attendant's rules, or fellow rest area utilizer's rules. I discount the average fellow shopper's rules and depending on personality, even some of the other people's rules who live on my own neighborhood block.
I like to collect the rule-makers the average church produces. Or maybe the educated business owners I call friends. Parents and older godly mentors are favorites of mine as well. I like the rules of people who have "been down the same road" I'm on, and give special seat in my heart to their voices. Local and national lawmaker's rules are a given, because court is expensive and scary and traffic tickets mean fewer shoes... I've collected some siblings' rules, a handful of pastors' and teachers', and a couple of husbands' who fit the bill of rule-makers. These are all intelligent, gifted and dogmatic in their area of "expertise" kind of people. All are "Type A" and confident that they know what is best. I also look to professionals such as medical doctors, therapists, and attorneys...
These make up the Collection and are the rule-makers I've preferred to follow. It's pragmatic, after all, to let people who "know", set the rules for my own personal conduct and thought patterns. Right? Right.
Or maybe, just maybe, it's utter foolishness.
Bear with me, I'm coming back to that after I tell you about this:
As usual, there's a roaming word in the quiet places of my thoughts. This is often how the God of heaven chooses to communicate with me. For a few months the word, again, has been "fear". This time, however, fear isn't "scared", but rather attaches to "of man" or "of God" in alternating thoughts.
I've heard these phrases in the fellowship halls, in the doorways and stairways of and from my seat in the pews or at the Sunday School tables in the churches I've attended for my whole life. Apparently, I've never actually paid much attention to the definitions, or more specifically, the ramifications, of those two phrases. Side note: how many of these churchy phrases have slipped into my life, unnoticed, untested, misunderstood my me? Ugh, I shudder to think about it.
Another subtle phrase I've tried wrestling into silence during this season is "self sufficient".
(See Jeremiah 17:5 to see how this also simultaneously weaves the blessing/cursing thoughts, in case you're curious: "Thus says the Lord: 'Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord.'").
You see, as I was dusting my Collection this winter, I also found me on the shelf, very much near the top.
So to recap, the aforementioned idea that this Collection and method of operation is utter foolishness, God has shown me these woven themes for these two or three months:
I (mostly) trust me. I trust you (well, at least the ones of you I personally vetted and placed in the Collection, which is also to say "I trust me to choose those of you who will care more about me than I do..."), I SAY I trust God. But, when he tells me to do something unadvisable by the other rule-makers, I have a long history of disobedience.
I "fear" the approval or disapproval of my self-collected mob of professionals, religious people, elders, BFFs, peers and critics, MUCH stronger than I "fear" the God whom I claim to follow.
Oh, and this is not-so-fun to see: when my collection of rule-makers disagrees, I trust myself slightly more than I trust the Lord. But, did you know that my Collection doesn't EVER all agree, and it never actually has? At the end of the day, the loudest, most insistent (read abusive), or most agreed upon voice gets my obedience. In the case of a tie, I do what's preferable to me and lobby HARD, at utter exhaustion, to convince the Collection of my "rightness" of choice. All of this has been happening at a sub-conscience level for FORTY YEARS. And this method already had a name, long before I engaged in it: PRIDE (Which for those of you younger than fourth grade is the opposite of "walking humbly" with God.)
Guys! I'm tired.
In December, as God began to reveal this truth to my spirit, I had a choice. I could hush him (again) or I could finally "End-Of-Flesh" obey:
Doing justice is easy, until it's my turn to receive it. Loving kindness ("mercy" as some translations say) is a given, until it's required of me to be kind or merciful to the cruel or the hateful. Walking humbly... nope, that's not easy no matter how you cut it. Do you know how WEAK it feels to choose to speak, out loud, to someone who is very capable and respectable (and probably has pride of their own), a complete admission of major, or minor, personal failure?
But, because the mercies of the Lord are new every morning, I've had choice all along, to obey or to hush him; to fear Him, or to consult one of the Collection opinions...
Roughly six weeks have passed since I made the choice, face down on my hardwood floor, to dismantle the Collection and place only one Opinion, only one Rule-Maker at the front of every choice, every thought, every step... It certainly hasn't gone flawlessly for me and the cost of obedience has been immense. I have had many of my out-loud confessions outright ignored or rebutted or spun into a lie. Oh, how the enemy hates TRUTH and will fight to quench it! Forgiveness has frequently been denied towards me, and yet a funny thing is happening! I just don't care what happens next. In fact I'm a little excited to see how it plays out, because this is no longer a "transaction" relationship to obedience- a "giving to get" or a "doing to have". Rather, this is a cleansing process of obedience before that Lord that is bringing complete healing that is for only me and cannot be stolen, cheapened or stopped by anyone else's choice.
I didn't come this far through that war to give back gained ground now. Truth is FREEDOM and admission of my weakness and failure is BUILDING STRENGTH and now this is becoming easier! Ohhhhhh, and the people I collected and "feared", some of those are TICKED to not be a part of my Collection anymore! I'm sad about that, but I'm not sad for me. The opposite is true too, some of them are so relieved to have the weight of their words towards me lightened because of my lower expectations. What a blessing those friends have become!
Today, I'm reminded of Peter, sitting in a boat with his BFFs and professionals from all walks of his life... Dr Luke would NEVER medically approve of Peter's move to step out ONTO the water. No psychologist, oceanographer, professional seaman, good friend or human with an ounce of wisdom of any kind would support his ridiculous choice to obey the One calling him out... If I had been there, I would have probably been in the very least, critical, annoyed, and frustrated at his choice...
In Peter's case, obedience motivated by fear of just One, proved miraculous and THAT is what I'm counting on for my own Walk of Humility out on the waters of obedience; and even if none go with me, or approve of my going, I will still step off the boat.
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord
Jeremiah 17:7
Both Photos of The Aegean Sea from Mykonos, Greece
