I Won’t Sin
“And I, I won’t lie. I won’t sin.” – Letters To God, Box Car Racer
I resonate with that line. It was in many ways an anthem of my childhood life. When I was young I grew up in a church that told me that growing up meant, “not sinning”. This mantra had a surprising affect of placing the dominant interest of my life on myself. I was always worried that I was sinning. And as wounded as I was from stuff in my life, I was deriving much of my love from others by being the “good” kid. I truly didn’t want to sin. I wanted goodness in my life.
“I won’t sin,” has a surprising way of destroying relationships. It creates a strange paranoia that drove me to wonder if I had done something I shouldn’t. I was always wondering had I said something or done something when someone gave me a look. I was in reality a co-dependent, attempting to draw my identity and validation from those around me. I was needy.
But as I grew older in age something didn’t jibe with what I had been told as a child. Was life really about not sinning? Or, could it be something else? For about ten years I simply walked away from that statement. Not sinning, simply didn’t work. And truth be told, I sucked at it. In fact, the harder “I” tried, the worse I became, and the more I proved it out. I couldn’t.
As I grew older I began to read the research of people like Piaget, Kohlberg and Erikson who suggested a far different interpretation of what maturity is. Maturity is the ability to think outside the self and recognize the world around us. It means to grow out of dependence to an interdependence. Maturity was, in essence, love. It startled me that scientists from Harvard could come to such a simple conclusion.
But what this means is that the primary assumption actually drove me to the exact opposite of what was intended. Focusing on the sin created a myopic approach on the problem and not the solution. I was destined to fail before I ever began.
And so I began to ask, “Is there something to this invitation to love?” Could my own restoration be wrapped up in beginning to look outside myself? Love calls us to maturity. It calls us to the very essence of our humanity, which is to reflect the very nature of God: to love. And at that moment, I began to see everything different. The law, which always led to love was not about “not sinning”, but about embracing love as the defining act of my life.
Jesus’ command to love wasn’t just something I had to do, but something I got to do. And if I followed, my own restoration was at hand. But to get to love I had to surrender to the reality that I couldn’t. At 37 that wasn’t hard to do. I had enough evidence to convict me of my inabilities. I was a fraud when it came to “not sinning”.
Much of my fear was always derived from the idea that God could not love me unless I was good enough. But what I now realize is that God’s love is not defined by what I do but by who he is. And that love was validated by the undeniable evidence of the cross. This was incredibly good news. He has never stopped loving me, even when I break myself. And that left me with the question of whether or not I would accept his love. Would I allow him to love me?
And when I surrendered to being loved, I realized a startling truth. Love would change me from the inside. And the more I received His love the more I could reflect that love to the world around me. And the cool thing was there was no law against love. It was extraordinarily perfect. By loving, I could accomplish the very thing I had attempted to do my whole life. And this love became my pathway to maturity.
Love called me to step over my obstacles and fight my way through chaos. It called me to restore my broken heart and broken relationships. It called me to the best of myself by finding those God was calling me to love. It called me to be the Good News.
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This post is part of a Synchroblog on maturity. Below is a list of participants.
Phil Wyman asks Is Maturity Really What I Want?
Lainie Petersen at Headspace with “Watching Daddy Die”
Kathy Escobar at The Carnival in My Head with “what’s inside the bunny?”
John Smulo at JohnSmulo.com
Erin Word at Decompressing Faith with “Long-Wearing Nail Polish and Other Stories”
Beth Patterson at The Virtual Teahouse with “the future is ours to see: crumbling like a mountain”
Bryan Riley at Charis Shalom
Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church with “Maturity and Education”
KW Leslie at The Evening of Kent
Bethany Stedman at Coffee Klatch with “Moving Towards True Being: The Long Process of Maturity”
Adam Gonnerman at Igneous Quill with “Old Enough to Follow Christ?”
Joe Miller at More Than Cake with “Intentional Relationships for Maturity”
Susan Barnes at A Booklook with “Growing Up”
Tracy Simmons at The Best Parts with “Knowing Him Who is From the Beginning”
Joseph Speranzella at A Tic in the Mind’s Eye with “Spiritual Maturity And The Examination of Conscience”
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes
Liz Dyer at Grace Rules with “What I Wish The Church Knew About Spiritual Maturity”
Cobus van Wyngaard at My Contemplations with “post-enlightenment Christians in an unenlightened South Africa”
Steve Hayes at Khanya with “Adult Content”
Ryan Peter at Ryan Peter Blogs and Stuff with “The Foundation For Ministry and Leading”
Susan Barnes talks about Growing Up
Sound and Silence considers Inclusion and Maturity
Kaiblogy with Mature Virtue
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