The reason that you, that I, struggle to follow Jesus is that deep down we’re uncomfortable with the fact that he is in control, not us. We’re uncomfortable with the fact that, as C.S. Lewis says, he’s a little bit wild. However, I also need you to know that it’s not all our fault. Many of us have been a part of households and communities of faith whose theology wasn’t much more than a golden calf. We have been part of churches that looked less like the Kingdom of God and more like a whitewashed version of the late-20th century American dream. They deified individualism, adventure, and “finding God’s will for your life”, but they didn’t consider that the God who rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt is kinda wild. He sent swarms of locusts and turned a whole river into BLOOD. You can’t box him into any kind of dream that you came up with on your own.

I wonder if Jesus’ disciple, Matthew, was burnt out in his first century tax booth and was glad for a shot at literally any other lifestyle? Who knows how he got there- all but a traitor to his native people and completely outcast by the religious system. I wonder if the women who funded Jesus’ ministry and followed him were there because they were tired of being treated like second-class citizens? I wonder if children were so excited to be near Jesus because he had the audacity to treat them like full people, not just half ones?

He tells them to ONLY visit towns inhabited by Israelites. When he references shaking the dust off of their feet, his disciples would have understood that he was insinuating any town that rejected his followers and their message about him was just like the godless, pagan nations abroad. They were not part of Israel. Jesus was saying that, in spiritual terms, he wasn’t super concerned about someone’s ethnicity or ancestral heritage. He was concerned with whether or not their hearts were open to him.

Not only am I warning against religion and formulaic brands of Christianity in your personal practice, I’m warning you against even listening to them. Because they’re threatened by you. Religious Christians are threatened by the simplicity, versatility, and deliciousness of authentic followers of Jesus. Your freedom is intimidating to them because they can’t control it. And what they can’t control, they try to destroy. What they can’t destroy, they cast out.

When we make exceptions to engaging in the rest that God gives us, and deep down that we know we need, we reveal the idols of our hearts. When we refuse to listen to our bodies and take some down time, we reveal what we worship: human praise and adoration, control over our circumstances, and performance or production, to name a few. God has to command us to rest and take a Sabbath because he knows how prone we are to wander. He knows how deceitful the enemy of our souls is.

Some of us have been around long enough to ignore the “s’ppostoos”. Some of us, like my husband, literally don’t care what you think he’s “s’ppostoo” do. Some of us have been maimed and injured by the “s’ppostoos”. And some of us are blind to them. Mostly because they serve us well and we don’t realize that everyone around us is just like us and everyone who isn’t has left our particular circle. Because they couldn’t live up to the “s’ppostoos”.

So often, at least in the Christian circles that I’ve run in, there’s this undercurrent of pressure and guilt to do more. We’re giving into the temptation to compare ourselves to others and figure out the “best” way to follow Jesus. Instead of asking him how he would like us to spend our lives, we’re just looking at the person we think is holiest or closest to God or whatever and doing more of what they’re doing. Nevermind that our lives, circumstances, resources, seasons, abilities, skills, and very bodies are different from theirs. We love a one-size-fits-all, silver-bullet approach to spirituality.

I’d like to think that there’s not that much, but we all know that that isn’t true. Despite my best intentions and areas of growth, there’s still blood on my hands. I’d wager that it’s true for you, too. Even with the best plans and the best spiritual advisors, the King of Israel ran out of patience. He had an idea about how things would go and he expected God to show up for him in that way. When he didn’t, Saul, like Moses and so many others before and after him, tried to fit God into his own plans and forced himself. He got blood on his hands.

If I’m right, and I think that I am, then we don’t have to change anything at all. The world was made good, beautiful, and abundant. What we have to do is figure out all the ways that the lies about scarcity and God’s character have seeped into our collective understanding and undo their damage. We need to rewire our collective brain. If you’ve ever had to unlearn anything or try to untangle the webs of your family of origin, it’s like that, but on a cosmic scale. We don’t have to change the world, we have to start believing the truth about it and that means acknowledging who it really belongs to in the first place. Spoiler: not us.

So, I was scared of desire and I learned not to trust myself. I was paralyzed by getting things wrong and anything that I did try was like throwing spaghetti at the wall because, not only did I lack proper support and training, but I was also not taught how to get insight from the Holy Spirit. And I never cast any vision. I couldn’t handle the potential failure and shame that would come with getting it wrong. I couldn’t handle the rejection. The sad part was that the rejection was coming my way regardless because I’m “not a good fit” for the evangelical world.