I like rules. I like the law. I grew up with it. It kept me safe until Christ freed me enough to where I could look into the law of liberty, even though I’m still fixated on my own scruffy face in the mirror (James 1). Now that I think about it, I’m the only person who actually likes following the arrows in parking lots because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Just this morning I imposed my sense of right on another person who asked me for a one time exception to directions I had been given previously. I’m sorry if I was wrong, but I have a high regard for “the rules”.

But Jesus did not live by “rules” as I’ve known and loved them. He lived by the Spirit, by the will of the Father, and by truth, all of which He was/is one with. (.doh. More brain cells miniature exploding.) At the same time He fulfilled all of the law so that I could take part in His righteousness and peace with the Father. I am now dead to the law, but I will confess to you right here that, for me, that law is an idol in a little closet with candles and incense hidden away who knows where. (Yes. I’m being figurative.) I’ve thought and prayed about this a lot the past few days and come to see how much I really struggle here. It wouldn’t be odd for you to find me in yet another conversation about the speed limit or copyright law because I’m driven to fight for what’s right, well, because it’s right. The law is the law. Cross your “T”s and dot your “I”s, period. And that isn’t in the steps of the Savior. That’s in the steps of the apostles when they stood bewildered at Jesus ministering to the woman at the well, or when Peter had his vision of the sheet with all the wrong food in it.

I guess living for the law has given me some measure of purpose in the past. Not a bad one to have, considering the many alternatives, but - goodness - it’s deceptive. If you had asked me three years ago, what defined me, it would have been the struggle for right. It was feeding a deep, deep part of me that needs cause, needs some cosmic reality to align with so that I feel as if my life is on the tracks. But my struggle so much more needs to be that I appear to the world, to the church, and to myself like the man, Jesus. He struggled for something higher.

And I gotta’ be careful, ‘cause I know my own tendency to embrace a rule, a truth, a right for it’s own sake. I’ll make a law out of Christ before long. I’ll wake up broken and battered in that little idol shrine wondering how I got there, and I’ll have to come to this realization all over again. But for right now, I’m stoked.