Resting not resisting

Quit thinking you can earn something from God. Stop believing people who say you can and should.

Learn to live in grace and in confidence with God. 

Consider the motives of people who benefit from you depending on them for answers about God, life, etc.

Learn to listen to God and not just what some people say God said.

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"Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by eating ceremonial foods, which is of no benefit to those who do so. We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat."

In this short wrap up of a long sermon-style letter to the Hebrews, the writer tucks away some powerful ideas that I believe we just skip over, including this short set of sentences which remind us that ceremony, as it were, is NOT God's ideal, but instead, grace.

We have become socialized to believe that worship services, per se, are an inherent good - that religious ceremony is an untouchable quantity of necessary activity that God demands. 

The writer of Hebrews reminds us that God prefers we trust his grace, not our attempts to dance in front of God, insisting on offering our chosen sacrifices on our own behalf - almost insisting he like it.

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Imagine trusting God when he says he's taken care of any and all sin issue that humanity had with him through Jesus and that there's nothing you can do but accept his forgiveness and be thankful for it.

Imagine that God is fine with you singing to him, talking to him and asking for things, giving money to pool with others to be used to serve those in need, learning more about him from people who have more experience or who've studied a little more, etc - but that none of that is required or necessary to make God happy in the way we've often been taught or threatened that it is.

Paul said "Find out what pleases the Lord" as does the writer of Hebrews in the referenced chapter (13). We often assume that because someone says, "Well THIS is what makes God happy..." that they are right and that their description of what makes God happy is not related to anything that would benefit them directly or mislead you.

What pleases the Lord is our trusting and depending on him and allowing that trust and dependence to lead us to live in whatever context we are in. And it usually leads to generous lives, freely sharing with others what God has shared with us. And if you read religious ceremony into that, you did that, not God.

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I will admit, it is hard to step outside of that religious system and to listen to God. We're trained to depend on "church" and to trust the leaders of congregations and we're told that in doing so we are actually trusting and depending on God. I believe that to be a lie.

A leader who trusts and depends on God will lead you to trust and depend on God, not on them or the organization that they benefit from. Sure, there can be overlap there, but I don't see it much in many places. I believe many of them believe those are one and the same - trusting God, trusting them. I don't.

Most of the time, all you need to do is listen to what a leader is asking of you, questioning you about, or directing you to do - and most of the time it's gonna come back to showing your devotion to God by "bringing more people to church" or some kind of scenario like that. 

I know some leaders think, "Why so much push back against church stuff? We provide a good service! We provide community for (some) adults! We provide a safe place for (some) young people to grow in their (church dependent) faith! We give warm fuzzies you'll remember for a life time (if you happen to buy into what we like and are willing to be part of our social circle)."  But they can't really hear their own PR.

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It has been interesting listening to those who have been jettisoned by their churches and forced to go through a reckoning with God, church, faith, etc. 

Some come full circle and understand that local churches are a human thing and there will always be human dynamics and that they just happen to get caught on the wrong side of it, but that the system is worthy enough and produces enough good that they can take on a new perspective and go with it.

Some walk away from God, church, the idea of faith, etc - they're just done. Some are bitter, some are confused and not sure what to do next, some turn against God, religion, etc.  It's a mixed bag.  It's strange watching "insiders" from church look on in horror - "Will that be me someday?"

A lot of people want the community "feel" that they left behind or were forced from. Some cannot stand the cult-like greasiness that they look back and see in hindsight.  Some look back as if the place they left is unrecognizable - and for some it is. It's hard and sad to hear those stories.

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But it's not all or nothing.  It's not "I have to choose between God and church, as I knew church".  You can learn to trust and depend on God and to allow him to help you to see his people, his family, and/or his church through different lenses.

It really opens things up a LOT. You'll feel a LOT of internal and external resistance for a while and then, over time, you feel not resistance, but resting.  It really is amazing.  You can really trust God in ways you've never imagined or believed possible.

Formal, organized religion still has a lot of people in it who know this and who are able to trust and depend on God inside it.  They know that God's church doesn't know our boundaries or names and operate as such.  They're good people.  If you're still "inside", you will eventually see them, I think.

All the church prognosticators I read/listen to from many different backgrounds tend to agree that churches in the US are progressing toward a large transition much faster than they imagined a few years ago.  I hope many will see it not as a failure of faith, but as an invitation from God for more and better.

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I sense God is doing among believers in the US what he did with the early believers in Jerusalem - shaking up their expectations and assumptions and moving them out of Jerusalem/out of their comfort zones so they have to trust and depend on him, not on the religious, cultic ceremony they grew up with.

There'll be plenty who hold on to the sinking ship as long as they can and will be the last ones gripping the bow as it slips under water.  There'll be some who catch on faster and fill up a lifeboat early and get away, saving many from an unnecessary amount of drama and struggle.

However it happens, I am grateful to have walked out of it by choice. A mentor said it would be hard, but that staying inside would be harder - the cognitive dissonance would become so loud that any naysayers would be un-hear-able at some point - and he was right.

I ask God to help me daily as I continue on this new path. I know he's already equipped us with all we need for life with him (2 Peter 1). I know that I am already new in his sight (2 Corinthians 5). I know that I am good with him.  I usually just ask him to help me in the clearing away of all the religious smoke and mirrors that I used to embrace.

And I pray that he helps me see others who are new to the path and that, if he wants to, can use me to help them as needed.  I know God is with you and for you too and that, even if I don't know about it, I can trust and depend on God leading you too.

Grace and peace.