Parenting Like A Jerk

I have a bad habit: I like to call my kids to me using my "angry voice" and watch them cautiously approach me with complete bewilderment on their faces since they're wondering "what did I do now?". As soon as I'm sure they're in complete suspense/agony, I happily tell them we're taking a drive to go get ice cream or some other spontaneous fun idea. For me, the surprise is even better because I get to watch their fear melt away as they realize I'm not mad, and even better, I'm giving them a gift!  As my kids have gotten older, they've become harder to trick since they're now up to speed with my sense of humor.

I'm a bit of a jerk...just for a minute until I reveal my true agenda ;)

Sometimes God gets the same bad rap: He's a bit of a jerk.  Sure, you get to go to Heaven...but here on Earth, you're in trouble! We can feel like God has a big paddle to smack us with as soon as we break some obscure Christian rule that only the church lady who plays the organ knows about.  Sometimes it seems that God is only happy with people who's lifestyle is a living monument to the 1900s: no fancy electronics, no stylish clothing, and no frivolous time-wasting entertainment!

As Americans, we may not recall everything in the Bible but we're crystal clear about all the DON'TS in there! Those don'ts are legendary; most of us are saddled with the vague internal fear that we're in deep do do for some don't we accidentally did. Take for instance the Garden of Eden--we probably all know how the serpent told Eve that God said DON'T eat the fruit. The serpent was familiar with the don'ts! But when we look in Genesis at what God actually said, we see that God told Adam to eat! Eat the fruit from any tree in the entire garden! But for your own safety, don't eat from this one tree. God roped off one tree in an entire garden full of fruit trees! God wasn't holding out, He was keeping Adam and Eve safe just like a parent would do: Kids, you can take a bubble bath but don't take the pills in the medicine cabinet...or Kids, you can eat anything in this pantry but don't eat the entire bag of dried apricots... Somehow we missed how God's always talking about what we CAN do with just a few warnings to keep us safe! There's a lot more that we CAN do than stuff that we CAN'T do! We feel the glare of the 10 commandments when God actually set us free from burdening rules and promised us exceedingly abundantly all that we could ask for or imagine, and loves us unconditionally! 

The serpent's the one who keeps reminding us of the fine-print. He's full of restrictions-may-apply and side-affects-may-cause-exploding-bowels kinda stuff. He's up on all the DON'TS! 

Sometimes I think we Christians sound more like the serpent: we're usually telling each other the DON'Ts!

But Jesus died a horrible,selfless, tortured death just to give us LIFE! Abundant life! Life to the fullest! A life we enjoy without the aide of Xanax! Jesus said, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." John 10:10  Abundant life? That sounds like a party to me! That sounds like sleeping through the night and waking up energized for my day so I can work and play and rest and thank God for the abundant life He provided for me! Abundant life sounds like no good thing withheld from me, a life I'm proud of, a life without regrets. And that's what Jesus gave us!

There's a lot of don'ts out there, but they're not part of the abundant life God designed for us! God's not a jerk! He gave you a permission slip to forget all the religious rules that inflict guilt and shame. He's the rule-breaker! Go live the abundant life that Jesus paid such a high price for you to have! (and go get yourself some ice cream--you've been a good kid!)