Obedient Rebel
The word obedience has always been a hard word for me to stomach. Like most people I was told growing up to obey. "Obey your mom and dad." "Obey your teachers." "When an adult tells you to do something, you need to obey." As a child I pretty much did this whether I liked it or not. For the first fourteen of fifteen years of my life I did what I was told for the most part. Until one day I made the decision that following the rules wasn't working for me. I was doing what I was "supposed" to do, but there was a gaping hole in me that wasn't getting filled.
Since I wasn't getting satisfaction from simply following the rules, I decided maybe some rebellion was in order. I started doing little things to defy the rules, but I did them in secret. Breaking the rules felt good, but I wasn't ready for open rebellion. I thought I could do whatever I wanted as long as I kept up the charade that I was a good little obedient Christian boy. To me Christianity was more about how others saw me than it was about how Jesus saw me. Somewhere along the line I had gotten the idea that Christianity was all about following a bunch of rules in order to get into heaven. I realized then that there was no way that I was built to follow all of those rules, but I came from a Christian family, so Christianity became about making my family look good.
After a while, keeping up this charade got exhausting. Living two lives is really hard to do and if I wasn't going to be able to follow all of the rules, why bother trying to look like I was? Why not at least have some fun? This started a very long season of open rebellion in my life. It was also probably the most honest I had ever been. At least I wasn't pretending to be "good" anymore. If I had to be "good" to deserve Jesus's love and I knew deep down that I was incapable of being "good", why did it matter what everyone else thought about me?
I lived this openly rebellious life for over fifteen years. I did awful things in the name of having fun and feeling good. That gaping hole wasn't getting filled, but at least it was getting masked. As long as I was focusing on having fun and feeling good, I wasn't focusing on my emptiness or brokenness. I was doing what I wanted when I wanted. Why did I need to worry about how that was effecting other people or what God thought about my lifestyle? I had stopped following the rules therefore I wasn't getting into heaven anyway right?
This was how I viewed God before I actually let Him tell me who He is instead of listening to a bunch of religious people's skewed, self righteous view of who He is. My idea of Christianity was people shining a light on how good they are as a Christian compared to the rest of the world. How if more people would just act like them, more people would make it to heaven. If Christians just looked unblemished, the rest of the world should follow suit. I was way off.
Then one day God broke His way into my life like a wrecking ball (insert Miley Cyrus joke here). All of the doubts about Him that had formed over the years were shattered. All of the ideas I had formed in my life about what it meant to be a Christian were wiped away. That gaping hole inside of me was finally filled in. He showed me that to follow Him is not about being good or making the world think I am following the rules. He showed me that I am broken and it is impossible for me to be good or follow the rules. He also showed me that everyone is broken and it is impossible for anyone to be good or follow the rules. He shows us this time and time again in all of the gospels. He shows the broken His truth and grace. He shows the Pharisees that all of the rule following in the world won't buy a ticket into the kingdom. The good news is that He came to earth and died on that cross to make up for our brokenness. Without His grace, we would all be burning together. With His grace, we are cloaked in His righteousness and are granted eternal life. This is literally the best news ever. Even someone who once turned his back on God completely is redeemed by His grace.
Here is the thing though. I'm still super rebellious. If you tell me to do something, chances are I'm going to do the opposite. It is just how I'm wired. Unless it is God telling me to do something, that is. I know now that He has a plan for my life and I'm going to follow that plan. When He tells me something, I will be obedient. Lucky for me, He does have grace and He knows me better than I know myself. When He wants me to do something, he makes it blatantly obvious to me that it is Him who is speaking. When He has told me things through other people, He has literally had multiple people who don't even know each other tell me the same thing because He knows when that first person says it, I'm most likely going to ignore it. He knows my hardheadedness so He seems to just hit me harder and harder until I get it. He beat me over and over with the idea of doing mission work until I signed up for the World Race. I know that it is His will for me to drop everything and travel the world spreading the gospel. He has called me to this and I will be obedient no matter what the cost. Thank you for taking the time to read my Blog. Love Y'all!!!
