I just returned from a weekend in the South, meeting with many people in Atlanta, GA, and Greenville, SC, who had recently left the religious group they were part of for multiple generations. What a weekend! So many amazing people who were ready to honestly process their journey and sort out what was real from their past, and what was not. I sat among them with a tender heart for what they are going through. Many of you reading this have been through it as well.
It is a journey out of fear and threat, into a life of love and peace. For most of Christian history, fear has been used to motivate people to live for God. It begins with the fear of hell, and then moves to whether or not you can do enough to maintain your salvation. Many in this sect told me that even following all the rules didn’t even guarantee your salvation; no one knows that until they stand before God.
It’s disorienting to give up a lifetime of religious lessons, even when they have failed you. What guarantee do we have that God’s love will win the day? Moving from a fear-based environment to an affection-based one, especially with the fear of hell hanging in the background. The struggle is not so difficult for those who have not been ensnared by performance-based religion. Trying to earn a love we already have. But those trails run deep in our brains, and it takes some time for God’s spirit to renew our minds to think inside his love, where we can live from fullness instead of our fears.
The path of fear does not lead us to God’s presence. Sadly, it leads us away from him. You cannot love the one you fear. Certainly, God can’t break through it, and he often does, but living under constant threat makes it difficult for us to recognize his love as he reveals it to us. I do realize how easy it is to miss his nudges into freedom because the fear of the eternal consequence of getting it wrong looms large. That’s why I’m blessed by people who are willing to risk a different journey. To even consider another path takes tremendous courage, especially when family and friends tell you they will lose their hope of salvation if you take it.
Jesus offered us a different path, where God is revealed in us and we become responders to his insights and nudges. That all begins with learning to relax into his love, which can take a few months or even a couple of years. So don’t press yourself. Religious performance always begins with what we do; living by affection begins with what God does.
So, how do you find the trailhead? I encourage people to ask God every day for him to reveal his love to them. Then watch for ways he does that, not by fulfilling your desires, but by showing you that you are not alone and revealing himself to you. That’s the trailhead. Go down that path, and he will teach you how to rely on his love, recognize how he makes himself known to you, and how to respond to him. That is the essence of what it means to follow him, not from obligation to obligation to religious activity or beliefs, but to a connection of endearment to the presence of Jesus at work in you.
I pray for them, and all of you reading this who desire a better journey. I know it is scary to leave the familiar, but if it isn’t fulfilling your hunger to know him, it is worth the risk. If you need help with this transition, please check out He Loves Me, or even make use of the Engage videos to coach you into recognizing how God wants to build a relationship with you.
Tomorrow, Sara and I are off to Tulsa for our 50th college reunion. Can you believe it? We have some great friendships that we’ve treasured over the years, and who will be there as well. Hopefully, our flights won’t be cancelled by the crazy government shutdown over here. It worked last weekend; we are hoping it will work this weekend, too. We’ve checked in, and so far the flight is a go!
