What is the Nature of Disagreement?

They would say, "If you don't agree with the scriptures that this is true, then you have turned from God." Do you believe in this principle?

If it weren't for the fact that most of the people in my life are those who struggle to get their Christianity off the ground, I wouldn't have seen for myself how much obedience to the scriptures is just not all that easy sometimes, not practical, not really an option for the way some people are built. And then I would not have seen that same quality, in myself.

Both during my "conference" and now I find myself appealing to the parable of the four soils:

[I paraphrase]The Word falls along the path and is swallowed up, along the shallow soils and quickly withers, among the weeds and is choked, or in deep soil which bears fruit after more fruit.

I tried with moderate success to ask them many times to answer for themselves individually: don't you also have areas of your heart where the Word of God is saying something that for now you can't hear, can't maintain, can't choose by the will, and can't incorporate fully? Everybody has areas where they hear what is right but can't want it because it's too hard, or the transformation is at least, for now, too far off in the distance.

We can't judge someone for specific problems. Because apart from Jesus we can do nothing; obedience comes from God and sometimes He lets it be awhile before we start getting it right.

What if she's saying "I can't do it. I can't do it, God. It doesn't make any sense, it doesn't work with who I am at this point." She is a sinner who wants God but can't be righteous enough on her own to qualify naturally. In this case, what she needs, is grace. The kind of grace that Jesus exhibited to the sinners and tax collectors -- those who knew they couldn't obey and beat their chest in agony and bitterness for acceptance.

On the other hand, it is definitely true that people reject the common interpretation of scripture because they find it constricting, too constricting, for their desires. They resent a higher authority of correction and rebuke. What if this is the real issue behind a choice to ignore the scriptures? In this case, liberalism is far from being the answer.

I need to be careful here to pray and think both in her shoes and without, to know for myself how I should handle her.

How concretely different is disobedience from admitting failure and inadequacy? After all, if you can't do what is commanded, don't you also desire, at least partially, to do that which you are accustomed to?