Sometimes (actually more often than not!), it feels as if I am wearing a restrictive helmet. It feels as it my brain just cannot expand to help me grasp something or understand something. The same applies for when I am trying to get insight from God on something.  Sometimes it feels as if my prayers are just not being heard.  Its like I am reaching out into a black numbness.  Not scary.  Not ‘dark’ or alone.  Just a numbness.

And then sometimes, its as if there is a hole pierced right into the helmet and the light shines through so brightly – its like a radiant revelation that I just cannot ignore. And with it comes an overwhelming sense of emotion.

I guess, it’s because we are living in the earthly realm and every now and then, we catch a glimps of the spiritual realm.  It’s so powerful and so emotional that we cant help but fall in love with God all over again.  It doesn’t mean that we ever stop loving God. We probably just stop feeling the love.  Its like any relationship.  We just exist in it until something happens that gives us a fresh rush of emotions. The rush of emotions can be brought on by something special, spectacular, dramatic or traumatic. But the response is always the same.  Our heart flutters and flies to the ones we love.

So it is with our love relationship with God.  Although we may always love Him we probably don’t always feel the love until something emotional brings us closer.  Until we press into Him and He presses back with His beautiful and perfect love and meets us at our exact point of need … like the pinpoint through the black helmet.

My recent insight was an answer to a question that has been rolling around in my head, on and off, for about 3 years. The question is a very personal one and before I answer it,  I just want to confirm that I love my husband with all my heart. I’ve always believed that the Lord brought us together although it has also been a constant challenge for me in that he just does not want to go to church and does not want to get stuck in religious things.  In my head, it would be so easy if we could be that ‘happy clappy Christian family’ who are always seen at church and who are living the routine of a churchy Christian life.  That would be so simple.  So perfect.

But God had other plans!  Better plans of course!  To paint this picture perfect, I am going to give you a brief history of our relationship.  When we met, I was still waiting for my divorce to go through so I was not entirely ‘free’ – although the marriage relationship was long over and the court date was just a formality. I was also very much involved in my church and the church community.  It was a very healthy, happy, fulfilled part of my life.  Clayton had his own ideas of church and he was not prepared to come with me to church just because I wanted him to. YET, my pastor and very special mentor, Simon, was the one who continually encouraged me to pursue my relationship with Clayton. In fact, he studied the scriptures and gave me confirmation, which was supported by his pastor friend, that the term, ‘being unequally yolked’ had been completely misinterpreted. I was unaware of it at the time, but my journey against church legalism began under Simon’s leadership and it is still continuing today.

The real biggie however, was when we fell pregnant before we were married which made me feel an enormous amount of guilt and shame.  I had tried so hard to be ‘good’ but had failed over and over again.  And yet, God. in His goodness and mercy, gave me these word ..’Even there, I am with you!’  So no matter how far I fell or where my choices would take me … even there, God would be with me.’  He never turned His face away, but rather He showed His love and mercy by giving us a set of identical twins, which had been a life-long dream for me.  Now that is perfect Love! No judgement, just mercy.

So, back to my incredible revelation.  The message was this ….’God wants me to discover how to be in an ongoing relationship with Him, outside of the legalism and boundaries of the church. Our relationship must grow out of the fullness of His love.  If I had met and married a church-going guy, I would have been carried by the system rather then the relationship.’  Not that it’s wrong to be in the church system. It is great for so many families.  But for me, God wants to show me something different – to show me a different aspect of Him.

I believe that He want me to be ‘Free to See’.  There is no doubt that church gave me that real ‘elated, feelgood feeling’. Almost euphoric. And it also gave me a sense of inner pride – like look how much I do for God. I’m so involved.  I’m such a good Christian!’ And I have actually been missing that ‘feel-good’ feeling since I have been in-between churches.  So I think that God wants me to be ‘freed’ from the ‘need’ for church. Free to see God and how He wants me to see Him.  There has actually been a bit of a build up for this particular revelation, although I didn’t know it at the time. A little while back, I had a ‘God moment’ and the message was one that would form part of this bigger picture, although I did not know it at the time What I did know is that it was a divine message because I felt profoundly changed by it. Also, my absolute confirmation of whether it is a word from God or just my own thoughts, is that when God speaks, I remember every detail of the message and every detail of where I was and what I was doing – no matter how much time goes by.  Its like a landmark moment.

Oh, so back to the revelation!!! I realized that I kept grabbing at things that would make me feel that I was a good Christian. Like going to church and going to bible study and hosting worship events.  These are all good. But I was using these ‘things’ to feel close to God’!  Whereas Christianity just boils down to a real relationship with God and the most important thing to do, is to spend time in relationship with Him. I don’t actually need all these things to make me right with God.  And even if I completely remove all these things, I will still be in a good place with God, just by spending time with Him, talking to Him, talking about Him and worshiping Him.

So this is what has become crystal clear to me. God wanted to change my perspective and focus. He has completely blown out of the water, the old way of doing Christianity and is taking me on a new journey of ‘doing relationship’ with Him.  This is very freeing in a way.  No more legalism, no more expectations, just a real, living relationship with a loving God that is full of Mercy, full of Grace and perfect in Justice.

You see, the thing about us humans, is that we are doers.  We need to do something in order to feel good about it.  That’s what makes other religions easy. They are based on the doing, or the rituals rather than the relationship.  But with Christianity, there is no doing. Well, there are the 10 commandments which only really cover the big things, so they are not really a part of our every day life and they were replaced by the ‘new’ commandment “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. and “Love your neighbor as yourself”

So Christianity is actually really all about relationship.  And everything else just happens. We are really impacted and changed through the relationship. All the doing will not really alter the essence of who we are, but a relationship with God will change how we relate to God and how we relate to others and this will most certainly change us from the inside out.

Romans 12:1-2The Message (MSG)

Place Your Life Before God

12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.