One of my favourite chapters in The Beautiful Outlaw is the one where John Eldredge talks about Jesus’ “trueness”. Basically he says that Jesus was free from the opinions of others, free to fully “be himself” without the usual social inhibitions. He contrasts that to humans in general, and how tied up we are in what others think of us.
I know without question that this is true of me; I care WAY too much about what people think of me. Even though I’ve never been a total conformist, I still want people to like me, and like most other people, I can be a chameleon.
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about how much “what others think” have influenced my walk with God. See, reading this book has totally blown my perceptions of Jesus out of the water, and suddenly I find myself wanting to read the stories of Jesus, and wanting to talk to other people about what I am learning about him. And I am finding myself amazed at how different those desires are at this point in my life compared to when I was a bit younger.
See, in my teens I “got into Jesus” partly because I loved him, yes. But being a “Jesus Freak” had perks. It gave me a group of friends who thought similarly to me, it gave me community, a place to belong, and a cause to be passionate about. It sounds terrible, but I find myself thinking that maybe I got into Jesus for the same reasons that other teens get into drugs, or music, or a particular sport- it gave me a community and a purpose. Not that community and purpose are bad- they’re far from it- but I find myself feeling like these ulterior motives in my relationship with God superseded the genuine love I had for him simply because of who he is for a very long time.
As a “Jesus Freak” in my teens, there were rules. You read the Bible and prayed, you told other people about your faith, you went to youth conferences, you spent your free time in church. You kept away from things like “questionable” movies and mainstream music and “immodest” clothing and many other things. I followed the rules because I wanted to be a good Christian, and because I wanted to be accepted among my peers, I think. I walked like all the other Jesus Freaks, because that’s what we did. I was part of the Jesus Freak Clique.
Then I hit my twenties, and things fell apart. My friends began to see things differently from one another, I began to question a lot of my assumptions, and I was confused as anything. For the next several years, my faith began to grow and become more based on genuine love for God, but there was certainly still a need to impress others with it. I would embrace a particular form of Christianity because, in my mind, doing so made me more acceptable to my friends, or possibly more likeable to whatever guy I was into at the time.
Once I settled down in Victoria, I found myself in a spiritual patchwork quilt- many different friends who got along, yet whose experiences of God, theological ideas, and ways of connecting with Him were totally diverse. Of course this was good for me as it forced me to figure out how Mary follows Jesus (as opposed to the next person), but nonetheless I experienced years of frustration, feelings of distance from God, and questioning.
I think I probably still care too much about what others think of my friendship with Jesus. But perhaps I am learning to care more about what Jesus thinks of my friendship with Jesus, lol. I certainly feel like I am getting the hang of understanding who He is, what kind of man walked the earth 2000 years ago. And in the process I am “falling in love” all over again. When I find myself wanting to read the Bible or tell people what I am learning, it is no longer motivated by pressure, by a feeling of “that’s what a good Christian is supposed to do”; instead it’s motivated (I think) by genuine enthusiasm about who Jesus is. And it is NICE to feel at least somewhat freed from those obligations.
So why do you follow Jesus? Is the way that walk based on true understanding of him, or are you doing the things you do because that’s how other Christians are doing them, because doing so will earn you brownie points in the Christian culture? It’s a question worth asking.
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