Growing up, I feel like my attitude towards life was something along the lines of, "If you don't get caught, you won't get in trouble." Now, most people would jump to the conclusion that I was a troublemaker in school or that my group of friends was shady. It makes sense, a lot of people with that mentality choose to be stealthy in their rebellion against authorities and do everything in their control to not get caught. For me, though, the reaction was the complete opposite. In my mind, the best way to not get caught, and thus not get in trouble, was to not do said misbehavior at all. I guess it was a mentality more along the lines of "If you don't do it, you won't get in trouble."
This is a mentality that, unfortunately, has stuck with me to this day. And in many ways, it impacts my view of God. Because God is an authority figure, I jump to the conclusion that if I avoid doing bad things, I won't be punished. If I don't sin, or conquer some of the big sins in my life, God will be pleased with me. This can become the focus of what I am living for: avoiding doing bad things. And in doing so, I overlook good fruits that I can bear through the power of the Holy Spirit. Sin is horrible, and it is essential to flee from it, but this attitude leads to a horrible view of God.
When God renews our soul and makes us into a new creation, He calls us to a life where we are to glorify Him with all that we are. He doesn't call us to a life where we simply avoid sin. That is not enough. That is a mediocre way to live life. And it is something that I find myself doing far too often. My focus is so much on avoiding sin that I ignore opportunities to do good. This does not please God. My attempts to please God by avoiding bad actually have the opposite affect.
James writes that "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." (James 4:17) It does not please God because that kind of attitude is sin. I have had a glimpse of God's grace and have been forgiven by his mercy. I know the gospel and understand it. I know many of the things that God calls me to do. I know how he hates injustice and evil, and how we wants His Name to be spread to every corner of the Earth. And I still get caught up in thinking that God only cares about the sin in my life.
It's so hard to just change your view of God. I wish there was a switch in my head where I could just switch my attitude toward pleasing Him and be done with it. But there isn't. Dang.
So I must continue to remind myself of the life that God calls me to live. This life is not about me. It is not about how good I look in front of God. It is not about how good I look in front of others. It is about surrendering it all to the Lord of the universe. Surrendering the entirety of my life to the one who created it all. When I live apprehensively, hoping to skate by with simply avoiding sin, I am picking and choosing parts of my life to surrender. That is not surrendering; that is not submission. Jesus calls for his followers to adopt the most radical abandonment of their selves: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it." (Luke 9:23-24) This task sure seems overbearing, but that is why we have been given the Holy Spirit. It is through Him that we can be producing good fruit for God and living the lives we are called to. He will make straight our paths if we trust the Lord with all our heart (Proverbs 3:5-6). He will continue to sanctify us.
We were not created to wallow in the mediocrity of half-hearted surrender. Can surrender even be half-hearted? The word alone implies giving up everything. We are called to so much more than mediocrity. But this is something I am horrible at remembering. I want control. I was successful at staying out of trouble growing up, and I want to continue being successful. It's easy for me to focus only on myself and think that I am accomplishing a lot. It is a lot harder to take the words of Jesus seriously and live my life like that. But it is possible, because our God is able. And He is so worth it.
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