So to follow up from my past blog, I wanted to expound on some of the ponderings of my heart.
 
Growing up, I embraced the identity of “the good son.”  I was constantly affirmed and praised for good, wise decisions.  I was trusted with a lot because I was faithful with a lot.  Into my teenage years, this became an obsession with “good behavior”.  I was the model youth group kid.  Mom, I have a confession: When I was 13, I did listen to D.C. Talk’s “Jesus Freak” behind your back…and I’m sorry.  LOL 
 
I didn’t have a lot of friends, but I sure as heck “kissed dating goodbye”…because the right thing to do in that season (at least “righteousness” according to Joshua Harris, was to give up dating…which I hadn’t really done until that point, so it wasn’t so hard to give up…).   
 
I began to internalize this sense of “right and wrong” to where I didn’t need to wait for the praise or affirmation of others when I did right because it was just what “good Christians” did.  It no longer was a warm fuzzy because it wasn’t a challenge.  I did good things and didn’t do bad things and there I was.  
 
 
 
Now it was a little more complex than that, I was passionate, compassionate, growing in my leadership ability, but found that people around me resented my harsh reactions to errors in behavior.  I even had a good friend tell me he would never dream of sharing his struggles with me because he couldn’t handle my disappointment (instead of grace). 
 
So I think back to the life I grew up with.  I learned quickly that people just couldn’t live up to this ridiculous standard.  In fact, I would often “win” the battle but lose the “war”.   In other words, I could fight and defend to the death the condemnation of behavior (I was “right”), but would lose the battle of relationship…which unfortunately did happen on several occasions. 
 
So in my late-twenties here (very late twenties, eeish…), I have to wonder if that’s how God sees things.  Sure bad behavior is bad, sin is sin, righteousness is righteousness, I’m not disputing the facts here.  I’m talking about perspective.
 
Is living by a criticism of everything in life being “right” or “wrong”, “good” or “evil” really the way that I should be gauging behavior?  Galatians says that the “law” was our tutor, so moral training has its value, but what life is there in behavior constantly being a gauge of love or disappointment?  I have never been able to reconcile the unconditional love of God with my own disappointment at my failures (which I can only assume mirror God’s own disappointment at my failures).  Sure love has it’s various expressions, but I hate doubting God’s love when I move into a place of disappointment with myself (which again, I (wrongly) assume is God’s emotion as well).
 
As I make decisions about how to live my life, would I feel differently about how I live if I choose to base my decisions on what brought “life” versus “death” to me and my relationships instead of what was “right” and “wrong”?  (I consider “life” not in terms of happiness, unity or even harmony…but genuine “life”).  In fact, what if I stopped thinking so much about my actions and instead focused on my relationship with my Father. 
 
What if it didn’t matter so much what I did, but really began to matter that I genuinely understood how much He loves me?  How would my life change if I just lived as if I were loved?  Would I even have to “try” to live a certain way or would the natural result of such an worldview just BE righteous?