Religion vs Relationship

A friend of mine recently emailed and we were talking about how it is coming up on 10 years that we've known each other.  He commented that 10 years later and now I'm the religious/righteous one.  The words religion/religious have come up a lot lately in my life.

My response to him was:

Funny how our religious (though I despise that word) views have changed. Hadn't really thought much about that. I was pretty lost 10 years ago and felt like God couldn't exist and if He did He obviously forgot about me a long time ago. You were debating on whether you should go on a mission. Crazy. 

Yeah in the last 10 years I have grown so much in my relationship with my Creator. I guess the term religion seems so cold, man made and so far from who I believe "He" (although I don't believe gender applies to "Him" it is easier for me to just use the male pronoun) is, relationship feels like a much better term to describe what I believe we are meant to experience. 

It's not enough to say you believe in God, or that you are a Christian.  If you are Catholic you follow this set of "rules" and if you are Methodist you have a different set and Baptist, and Mormon and on and on....

I guess I'm just not convinced that this was God's plan in sending Jesus.  I don't think He ever intended for us to view Him as a bunch of does and don'ts. I think more than anything He simply wants a relationship with us. I don't think that God is going to be angry with me because I chose to use birth control, only confessed my sins to Him and not a Priest, ate pork....  The list of rules could on forever.

I do however think that He is angry with me when I choose all these rules over relationships.  When rules are used to decide who is worthy and who isn't.  It is not my place or yours to decide who gets to come to the Father.  That is one of the greatest things about the cross, ALL can come.  Not just those the religious felt were worthy.  In fact go back to the Gospels, it was the people who the religious leaders of the day said were unclean and unworthy that Jesus was hanging out with.  He was hanging out with the prostitute, the tax collector, the Gentiles, those on the fringe.  The lost and the lonely, those that had given up on themselves and society had long forgot.

And what did He tell them?  That God loved them, that they were important in the Kingdom.  He welcomed them, He found out their needs and met them, where they were.  He didn't say, "I'll tell you what, you get your life together, follow all these rules and then and only then will I accept you", or "Sorry you joined the wrong church, we aren't taking Methodist members".  No, He not only accepted them, He met them.  He didn't sit in the synagogue waiting for people to realize they needed Him.  He went out and found them and loved them and shared His message, He brought God to them.

The whole time He was in ministry, He was in relationship.  Relationship with His Father, Relationship with the Disciples, Relationship with the lost. He wasn't some cold and distant King that sat on His throne where the people couldn't reach Him, He was out amongst them.  So if our King was out amongst the lost, where are we?

And speaking of Jesus, I think it must really anger God when we use rules instead of His Son to determine our worthiness.  People there is nothing you can do or not do to earn your salvation.  Christ did it, He covered it all on the cross.  You could live what you consider to be the most holy and pure life, and it still wouldn't be good enough without Jesus.  We are sinful by nature, we have messed up from the Garden of Eden, we will never get it right on our own, ever.

The self proclaimed righteous are no different from the murderer, the prostitute, the thief, the homosexual, all those that we as a society have deemed unworthy, all are God's children and all can come to the Father through Jesus Christ.

So I guess it doesn't matter how many good deeds you do, or how badly you've messed up, through Jesus we can all have a clean slate.  And through Jesus doesn't necessarily mean that you must do A then B and the finally C.  It simply means to have a relationship with Him.  Think about what a relationship is.  You know the other person, you think about them, you consult with them, you listen to them, you value the them, you LOVE them.

To me a relationship with God means that I want to know Him, and I want to be what He created me to be.  I can achieve this through His Word, through other believers, through all His creation.  Yeah, relationships are messy and relationships are hard, but without them it would be an awful lonely world.

So I challenge you to not only step out and build relationships with people, but more importantly build a relationship with God our Father.  Put down the rules and pull out your Bible.  Once you build a true relationship you won't need the rules, they will be in your heart.

Slacker

So I guess I've kinda been a slacker when it comes to blogging.  Maybe it is because I'm pretty convinced that nobody reads my blog other than myself.  However, I logged on today and saw that I have a follower!  =)  Hello my one and only follower, my cousin Dana and maybe Josh?  It is fitting that you are my only follower as you are the one who got me interested in the idea of blogging. 

This has been a crazy weird week, month, year.  We've had lots of changes; we moved, BIG change, we decided to homeschool our children, BIG BIG change, and we are in the process of finding a new church home, BIG BIG BIG change.  There have been other changes along the way but those are probably the three biggies.  It seems everything happens in three so it seemed fitting to pick just three.  But back to my point.  With change comes conflict, or at least it seems to in my life.  Conflict isn't always bad.  I can hear you say, good conflict?  Yeah the two words don't seem to go together cohesively, but they can, and if I have to experience conflict it is my preference.

A previous job actually had my co-workers and self attend a conflict resolution seminar.  It is amazing at all the different types of conflict there are, personal, situational, communication, organizational, and so on.  And there are good, bad and destructive management patters.  So having said that, the types of conflict we've experienced in our lives over the past year have been a mix and the management, well I wish I could say it was all good.  But I would be lying if I did.

Sunday morning Pastor Mark was preaching on conflict and he said, "God will disrupt us and conflict is normal".  And it made me think back to everything over the past year.  Man has He disrupted our lives in the last year and man oh man is the conflict here.  I felt better leaving on Sunday morning thinking of how minor my conflict is compared to some.  I mean He disrupted Noah asking him to build an Ark.  Imagine the conflict that must have brought for Noah.  Or when God positioned David to face Goliath.  Or changing Saul's conversion to Paul.

Makes my disruption seem like a piece of cake, only I've dealt with the conflict management completely wrong.  I've tried to handle it on my own, instead of giving it to God.  Wow, talk about a BIG mistake.  So with the help of God from today forward I'm giving it to Him.  I'm trusting Him to get us through this as He has my whole life.  I'm no longer going to try and fix it or change it, I'm going to go to my knees.  And then when the next big season of conflict comes around, hopefully I'll be a little wiser and a little more like Christ and will know how to better handle it.

So as you go about your life if you find yourself in a season of conflict, hang on God is moving and if you trust Him and put your faith in Him, He'll do some big things!!

Innocence

Well today was the start of our 4th week of the school year.  It has been an eventful journey so far.  Some days are awesome and others well, lets just say they are less than what I hoped for.  It is 5:30 and I am sitting in a laundry basket full of towels that need to be folded blogging.

Today was one of those less than I hoped for days.  Dakota is frustrated, he feels like his work is too hard, Drew didn't seem to remember anything today (typical Monday for him), Tannin is 5 what else can I say,  and Kat is just a busy toddler.  Makes homeschooling eventful.

During math today Drew suddenly disappeared to the backyard.  I look out the sliding door to see him stepping off feet in the backyard.  I ask him what he was doing and he says "Counting how many feet are in our yard".  Yeah the math question was "How many feet are in a yard".  Drew is so literal, at least I got a good laugh.

Homeschooling is definitely a whole new world.  Socially it is not the norm, so when someone asks where my kids go to school and I say we homeschool I usually get the response "Oh, you're brave".  To which I often want to say, I think it is braver to send your kids to public school, but I just smile as if to agree.

I know some people think we are wrong and are ruining our kids.  What about their social skills people ask.  I guess it would be better for my 5 year old to learn social skills from rude and obnoxious peers than from me.  And every time we went to parent teacher conferences the teacher would tell me that my boys talk to much.  They aren't here to socialize they would say.  One trip to the school, seeing the Jr. High with the on duty police officer, a walk down the halls to hear the language being used, gossip being spread and kids being bullied and I know that I can't ruin them anymore than public schools can.

But what about academics people will argue.  You don't have a degree.  In fact studies are showing that the United States is falling significantly behind other countries in the students that are graduating.  No Child Left Behind is a joke.  I have a child who has been left behind for too many years.  Public schools need funding, teachers need students with good test scores to look good, so they teach the test.  They aren't really teaching the kids, they are teaching the test and it is not working.

So while some days may be less than perfect, this is the world we live in.  I will continue to do what I believe God has called me to do, and I will continue to pray for His guidance and that my relationship with Him and my children's relationship with Him will grow and be filled with blessings because of the homeschool experience.  And if those relationships grow and flourish then the social and academic aspects will end up being exactly what they are meant to be.

Blogging

So I always said I would never blog, felt too much like an online journal.  It seems like everything is an open book in today's society.  But then I started reading my cousin's blog and found it kind of intriguing.  Not sure who would want to read my blog or why they would want to read it, but then again it really doesn't matter.

Lately I've been feeling restless again.  Maybe it's the seasons getting ready to change, maybe it's the fact that I'm homeschooling 3 children and tending to a baby all while trying to keep the house clean, laundry done, meals cooked, pantries stocked and drive the kids to sport practices.  Or maybe it is simply because I'm not where I'm suppose to be.  I could be crazy, but I feel like God is working on some big changes in our lives and the start of homeschooling is just the beginning.

There are so many things that I want to do in my life and staying stationary in Normal, Illinois is not one of them. It is so hard with kids and family.  My mom would kill me if I ever moved away with her grand-babies, and I think I would have a pretty hard time being too far away from her too.  Even though I tell her she could come with, I know she'll never leave this area.  When we moved from Mackinaw to Normal last year I thought I was going to die being 30 minutes away from her, yet there is this huge part of me that feels like an even bigger move is in our future.  I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there.  I know that a big move is what God has planned for our lives, He will provide.

As I'm sitting her typing this Kat is sitting in high chair in her pajamas giving me her famous cheese face.  The boys finished their breakfast awhile ago so they could play for a few minutes before we start school, which looking at the time, it is about that time.