What Do You Want to Do?
When I was a child, I couldn’t wait to be a grown up and do whatever I wanted. No more chores like mowing the lawn in the summer heat. No more reading books that I was TOLD to read. No more going to bed on time, or getting up on time, or eating on time, or showing up on time, or thinking about time at ALL.
And then I became legally an adult. And got married. And had mortgages for houses I loved. And had children. And learned the joy of service (sometimes.) And learned of the danger of obeying my whims instead of God’s WHIMS.
And one day… both gradually and suddenly… I realized that being an adult did not mean finally being able to do what I want to do. But rather doing what the love of God and others allows me to do.
I almost wrote, “requires” me to do. But that is not quite right. Certainly God’s law, external to me, requires actions, words, and thoughts from me. But that is not why I do them.
Martin Luther was the greatest of the “Bait and Switch” evangelists. He claimed that once we become a Christian we are free to do whatever we want. But what we want to do, changes.
We are not the masters of our fate. We are not the deciders of what is good. We are not the source of freedom. We are not children finally having selfish, childish, fire-crackish giddy adventures.
We are free, instead, to do as we were created to do, and restored to be able to do. We are free to be Christs to each other (no one else is free to do that, because only His people can.) We are free to do what HE wants us to do (our Creator who knows us and our limits and our potential.) We are free to choose what is both loving and lovely (while those without Christ can only choose selfish and shallow.) We are free to do what He has freed us to be.
And that is not what, before and without Christ, I wanted to do.
But more and more… some days better than others… some moments richer than others… some times more real than others… I want to do.