Freedom is not a betrayal.
This week it’s half-term. Kid’s off school. I took the week off too.
There were lots of things I was meant to do. Prepare an amazing in-depth talk I’m giving on Monday at work. Build lots of flat-pack furniture. Make a dozen phone calls (we only moved into the house a couple week ago and there’s still lots to do).
And I did do some of each of those things.
But mainly we hung out with a bunch of people we like. Went to a safari park with family. Chilled out. And I spent a bunch of time lost in thought and wrote a bunch of blog posts—set myself up on Substack this time. Entertaining once again the notion that maybe soon—now?—I might be able to recover a plausible sense of faith.
It feels closer than ever before, but.. there’s something in the way. Still.
Ugh. What could it be?! This is so exhausting.
I’m angry with God about something.
Ohhhh.
I’m angry that I have such a strange (excessive?, tenuous?) way of relating to the faith.
I stayed up watching Youtube videos of American bible-belt preachers and then other Youtube videos of people criticising them as heretics. And afterwards I felt dejected. I can’t understand my relationship to Jesus, to the church, to the faith in the sorts of ways either of these groups seem to talk about… stuff. The way I imagined I could when I was younger. The way people who would be my friends talk about God—the way they speak encouragements to each other. It’s so… bibley. So… straightforward.
I wish things could be simple for me, like it seems to be for them. Fruit of the Spirit this. Armour of God that. Guard your heart. Quench the fiery arrows. Use a little wine for your stomach.
I’m angry at God for making me like this. So… complicated. So… difficult for others to relate to. And for me to them.
So
Alone.
Why couldn’t he have done it some other way? Made me with less of a need to word things for myself? Less able to see things for myself. Why is my mind shaped this way? Why are things—why am I so… well… free?
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”