When I was a child, I was taught that good Christians do good things. That in order to please God and become holy, we needed to behave. We needed to do good. We needed to do something. This line of thinking made many of us quite miserable over the years because we could never be quite good enough. The teaching caused me and others to experience an abundance of guilt along the way.
For the record, I don’t think that God is into guilt.
What if being a good Christian is not really about doing, but about being. In other words, take the focus off of our behaviors and practices, and just live. Release yourself from your striving to be good and relax. Step out of your list of rules and be freed to see the good in the world.
Free yourself from the manipulative shoulds.
When a person is no longer working on overload to do, they can rest and live. When my worry about being good enough is out of the way, I can simply love. I am struggling to explain this, but I believe that there is a natural state of peace and joy that is too often squelched by our hard work at being good.
What would happen if we just relaxed and let lives of love happen. No pressure, no hurry, no worry, just love. Just be.
When we get to that state of peace in our hearts, all kinds of goodness and kindness will come out.
It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.
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I am leading a River Cruise to Belgium and the Netherlands March 19-27, 2022. If you are interested in reading about the trip or joining in, the link is below.
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