Skip to main content

Setting Rules in Your Faith

I grew up in a classic Christian household. We went to church every Sunday, prayed before meals, and regularly read the Bible together. I constantly saw my parents living out their faith, so I grew up thinking that it couldn’t be that difficult. They made it seem so easy. However, as I got older, I started to try to live up to their example too much. I decided that I needed to be the picture of a perfect Christian, and anything less meant that I wasn’t good enough. I began to set rules in place for myself - look a certain way, act a certain way, read my Bible in a certain way. It started to take a toll on me, and that’s when I realized that something was going to have to change. 


The Rules

The rules that I started out with didn’t seem so bad. They were disguised as good things. Reading my Bible isn’t a bad thing at all, but I decided that it didn’t count as quiet time unless I was sitting down with a pen and notebook with just the right amount of time to do an in-depth Bible study. Praying isn’t a bad thing, but I decided that all of my prayers needed to be “sit down with your eyes closed and check all the boxes of a good prayer” prayers. Serving isn’t a bad thing, but I wanted to make sure that I was serving just enough so that people could see how put-together of a Christian I was. I began to focus more on myself and my imaginary rules than I did on the One who created me for more. 


The Damage

When my faith became more focused on myself and less on God, it wasn’t really faith at all. I felt like I didn’t have to trust in God because my rules and I had it all figured out. They seemed so fool-proof that I felt like I didn’t need to rely on God for anything anymore. This caused me to be so focused on myself that any failure felt like a personal attack. I wanted God to fix all of my problems, but I wasn’t close enough to him to allow for any life change at all. My faith was stagnant, and the purpose of it was simply for my own gain. It wasn’t until later that I realized that my faith wasn’t about me at all. The entire point of my salvation was for me to glorify God and make his name known. 


The Realization

This realization hit hard, and immediately inspired me to make changes in my life. I was tired of the cookie-cutter Christian life. God wasn’t being glorified by me following a bunch of rules that I made up. The Creator of the universe deserved more than the bare minimum. So, what changed?


The Application

The way I approached my faith changed completely. The focus was no longer on me, but God. There were three main areas of my life that changed. 

  1. Bible Study

With the rules, the purpose of my Bible study was simply to check a box. I wasn’t really taking anything in, I was just reading to say I had read. Now, I read to get closer to God. The Bible is God’s Word, and it reveals so much about him and his heart for the world. When we read it intentionally, it deepens our relationship with God and teaches us more about him. Our response to the Bible should always be praise, worship, and awe of a God that is so good. 

  1. Prayer

Prayer was another area in which I was just checking a box in order to sound and look like a good Christian. I completely took for granted the fact that God gives us the chance to talk to him anytime. He even tells us to “Pray without ceasing” in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Prayer is such an amazing opportunity to praise God directly. We don’t have to check a box, we can just go to him whenever and tell him about what is going on in our minds and hearts. 

  1. Serving

This area of my life had to change drastically whenever I made the decision to let go of my own rules. The purpose of service should never be to glorify ourselves, but rather to make much of God. Getting rid of rules allows us to focus outwardly rather than inwardly. When we see that God has a plan for every nation to hear his name (Matthew 24:14), it should cause us to want to share our faith. We have access to the greatest news ever (John 3:16-17), so why would we not share it? Making disciples who will go on to be obedient and share the glory of God is one of the most important ways that we can glorfy him. 


The Challenge

Have you been setting rules in your own life that are keeping you from glorifying God? Is your faith simply a checking off of boxes? God created you for more. We were made to glorify God and enjoy his grace forever. I want to challenge you to assess your own life. Where do you see rules that you have made for yourself? Pray and ask God to reveal these rules to you, and ask him to help you change your ways. We are not enough unless he strengthens us.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NaNoWriMo As a Full-Time College Student

For many years, since I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming an author. I used to write stories on whatever paper I could find. However, a lot of that whimsy and creativity flew to the wayside as I began to advance in my educational journey. Essays soon began to take the place of short stories, and discussion posts overtook poems. This was a difficult transition, as I had always felt that God gave me the ability to write for a reason. Fast forward to my third year of college. In my program, this is arguably one of the busiest years. Still, I could feel the creative void then more than ever. It was at this time that I heard about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) . I immediately blew it off, thinking that I was too busy and there was no way I could make it work with my schedule anyway. A few weeks later, I found myself staring at the “Join Challenge” button on October 31st (the day before the challenge begins). With little thought involved, I signed up. After all, I could jus...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beating Writer's Block

  Hello writers! Today we’re going to be tackling the age-old question “WHY CAN’T I WRITE???” This is something that I regularly struggle with (we are simply going to ignore the fact that I have not written a blog post in a month), but I have been working through. In other words, I don’t consider myself an “expert” in defeating writer’s block, but I am a person who has had some experience. So let’s dive in! What even is writer’s block? Just to clarify in case you’ve never heard it put into words: writer’s block (in the simplest of terms) is the inability to write for a period of time. It can be caused by a number of factors including stress, lack of motivation, problems with self-esteem, or perfectionism. As always, remember to give yourself grace! If you aren’t able to write for a few days, or even weeks, you are still a writer. We all have hard times. However, this post is for those of you who aren’t feeling motivated, but want to get some words down. I’ve heard plenty of advice ...
2 comments
Read more