What if...

...christianity is meant to include breaking rules?

As I listen to the radio sing yet another diddy sending home the message "You shall not share your glory with another" and "the point was not to make much of me but so we could make much of you for all eternity," I feel rebellion rising in my heart.

I remembered the one time I really poured out my heart to God and I told Him what I wanted which contradicted His Word. Both then and now I think about all the built-up pressure that was released in one split-second. Immediately I expect God to punish me for admitting what I want that's not good. But, for those several days after the outpour, I experienced the opposite. I decided God was really listening because my situation got a little better in my eyes.

Since then I've gone back to the same-old trying to reconcile to His desires for my life instead of mine. But all that has done is cause a lot of pressure, a lot of heart-hardening, and a lot of wearing thin.

I could do that again, another outpour. I wouldn't mind getting a little closer to my goal, if that's what He really wants to give me by whatever mysteriously odd chance. That's not too shabby.

It's not quite conditional surrender, but, certainly I can say that if He wants more of those kinds of moments, where everything is out in the open, He's going to have to take me as is, bumps and boils and all.

Can't Jesus just flabbergast me and deal with me on an individual basis? Sure the rules are God's and God does not change, but in some kind of way they have, on the exterior. Think about how Nicodemus must have been grossed out to be taught that there is a second birth, and how the pharisees were taught that David was breaking God's Old Testament rules but was righteous. Then there was the parable of the father with two sons being given a command, and one told him yes and didn't do it. The other son said "no" but later thought better and went and did it, and he is the good one. There seems to be some evolution, some relativity, here, in the teachings Jesus gives regarding how and when the rules are obeyed.

Even His glory He shares with us; today is for exchanges of disobedience and righteousness, so it's not like He hasn't committed to handling the matters of lesser beings.

Evolution? Relativity? Individuality? Do these characteristics apply to rule-abiding?

What does Jesus want to do for me?

Have I been reading my bible the wrong way? Has everyone else, too just been reading it for the written-in-stone, and not the relativities? Is that what Christianity has done? God is supposed to be about love, and grace and peace after all. Real peace? Am I living in real peace when I know that my desires don't matter in light of His?

Maybe it's not such a bad thing to be frank with God.