IN A MORE PERFECT WORLD

I’ve heard that saying many times in my life. The one that goes, “In a more perfect world” and it is followed by whatever would work correctly in that situation.

It might be a very sincere desire to wish that there were fewer problems in one’s life. Stress is seldom something that most people enjoy. But purging life of its reality is often impossible.

So we settle for varying degrees of control over our slice of the world. Sometimes with more honesty than others.

With faith God will in his infinite wisdom keep us off balance. For it is the lashes of uncertainty and crisis that sadly necessary to help reach into the core of our soul to face the truth of how much we are really willing to trust the Lord and in his word.

Do we ever reach a point of maturity that such uncertainty can be ended in this life? Not from what I’ve seen. However being human that doesn’t keep us from thinking in terms of a more perfect world, even it if only remains a visionary mirage for our imagination’s palate and not something with any real spiritual nutritional value.

I attend a bible study with a group of individuals who were for the most part delivered from their former allegiance to a legalistic frame of reference. I’ve always felt that the heart of the appeal of legalism is the element of control. Basically it allows you to determine by your actions of not sinning and keeping certain laws to earn your salvation.

That problem with this approach is that God’s laws are so exacting in their requirements that no one is able to keep all the law, except for Jesus. But that doesn’t keep some people from claiming they keep the law. However in reality what happens is that one simple ends up rationalizing one’s sin so it doesn’t in his or her view qualify as a violation of the law. In God’s eyes one has sinned, but in their eyes they think they are blameless, which will they find out otherwise when standing before the Lord.

What is amazing to me is that the one thing these individuals can’t seem to appreciate is how giving up the legalistic approach hasn’t meant they have given up on their need for control. So now instead of being free just to trust God in faith, they still have a lingering need to keep things within a narrow corridor of performance. Thus they confine themselves in terms of understanding scripture, attending church and a host of other Christian elements where instead of it being a act for surrender it is still an act of control whereby doing it somehow contributes to one’s salvation.

I have tried in my own way to be understanding of how truly fragile their spirits are in terms of accepting the message of grace. There are times when they end up very defensive if you point out where some spiritual sacred cow they worships is not truly precious in God’s eyes. It is a journey of compassion and hope that in some small way a little of the true light of God’s revelation will shine through. Sometimes it does and sometimes I have to endure the barbs of their defensiveness when they feel extra insecure. The path of obedience to the Lord isn’t always one that is without a few wounds. I just trust to God for the band aids.