Monday, October 16, 2017
570 - The Easy Life
Spirituality Column No. 570
October 17, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
The Easy Life
By Bob Walters
I honestly didn’t expect that becoming a Christian would
make life easier. Then upon opening the
Bible, I learned that Jesus promises over and over again that it won’t.
And it
doesn’t. Read the Gospels.
But what following
Christ does – when done properly – is make life more understandable and provide
the greatest depth of opportunity imaginable for intellectual growth, personal
freedom, community power, truth-driven foresight and the unparalleled joy of
truly loving and serving others. That is
the glimpse of God’s Kingdom we see in Christ; that is the truth the Holy
Spirit was sent to communicate to humanity.
It only
took me 47 years of this life to catch on.
Everything
I thought I would dislike about religion – the rules, the obedience, the
judgment, the narrowness, the mystery, the reliance on hard-to-understand
scripture, the seeming irrationality of believing things you can’t see, the
surrender of self-will to God’s will, going to church, church people, etc. –
were all things that I discovered either aren’t really true or, if true, aren’t
really a burden. Not in Christianity,
anyway.
No doubt,
the world we live in promises to remain a rough and tumble affair. And religions through the ages – including
some parts of Christianity – have lined up errantly on the side of rules and
definitions that require the cancellation of personal growth: you must not ask
questions, you must not doubt, you must not disobey. Or? We will kill you.
Perhaps
less scary but equally useless are religions – including some parts of
Christianity – that promise only “good things” in this life like wealth,
health, and stature. These are the
deceitful lies of pride from Satan, not the humble promises of the living,
eternal, and divine Christ.
Loving,
relational, and sacrificial faith are unique, key, but often underappreciated
aspects of Jesus. And the reason that
the true purpose of Jesus – to reunite us with God the Father – is often lost,
I think, is that the world is focused on sin, control, guilt, blame, fear,
greed, suspicion … it’s a seemingly endless list, but note that these are all
things of which Satan is a champion, and all things that cover over God’s great
power of love with virtually the same effectiveness that the power that Christ
covers over sin.
Christ, we
learn, is the embodiment of grace; not turmoil.
So much of the world – often with boundless but baseless vigor –
confuses, badly defines, or flat-out denies good and evil, right and wrong,
wise and foolish, and even smart and stupid, reducing humanity’s ability to properly
attach its fallen pieces to the eternal fabric of Christ.
Surviving
this world isn’t about making this world easier, because you can’t. But in making life’s burdens easier even when
they are inexplicable, frightening and maybe even crushingly unfair, no
survival tactic tops a close relationship with Christ.
When we
hold Jesus close, we realize He holds us even closer.
It’s as easy as that.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) didn’t know what to expect when he became a Christian; neither did he
ever expect to truly become one, nor how easy it would be.
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