Perfection is, unfortunately, not a state I have managed to attain yet. I just keep learning new things and realizing when I was wrong in others. Mostly I just keep realizing that I am going to have to learn to compromise more. For example, years ago, I chose to walk away from attending church services. I had not chosen to walk away from my belief in Christ. But I felt that churches, pastors, and people who congregated together in the church building made fantastic claims that they based on the Bible but couldn’t be verified in real life. I felt that churches often made sweeping judgments against those whose lifestyles didn’t conform 100% with their requirements. There were rules that had to be followed to be a ‘true’ christian. Deviating from those rules made you less than worthy. So I walked. I continued to want to know what the truth was so I kept studying various teachings including those in the Bible to see if I could separate the truth from the claims of the churches and the regulations laid down by them. In my studies, I recently came across this passage in the Bible that told of Jesus on the Sabbath in the synagogue. A sick woman was there and He healed her. This, of course, annoyed the leaders. Jesus was breaking a rule and working on the Sabbath. The leader didn’t complain to Jesus about this. I don’t know if he was in awe of Jesus or if he had just given up trying to get Jesus to conform to the rules. This leader went to the woman and scolded her for being healed on the Sabbath. So Jesus turned around and scolded him. Called him a hypocrite. Said he would have fed his donkey on the Sabbath, wasn’t this woman more important?
There were several little things that occurred to me when I read this. First, Jesus wasn’t always all that fond of the teaching of the elders. Second, rules weren’t His primary consideration - people were. And thirdly, he was in the synagogue. In spite of the fact that He didn’t always follow the rules, and He didn’t always like the elders, and He didn’t always believe they were teaching the actual truths God wanted the people to hear, where would you see Him on the Sabbath? He would be in the synagogue. He didn’t have to agree with them. He just kept doing what He thought was right. If He saw them hurting others, He spoke up. Obviously He didn’t make Himself real popular with the elders.
Anyway, it came to me there were some things I needed to learn from this. One, I should just keep on doing what I think is right. Two, if I see someone being hurt by the rules imposed by the church, I should speak up. And, three, I need to rethink my stand on church attendance.
So - I keep learning. I hope you do too.
Love
Mom