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If you want to know the truth, I’ve become stiff. It happened gradually, so I didn’t notice it. Isn’t that always how it works? I mean, if we were aware of these things, we wouldn’t let them take place, right? But I’m stiff. The last time I checked I could bend over and and touch the very ends of my toes, maybe even sweep my fingertips along the floor. But now, now, a dull pain creeps up my spine and into my neck as I bend down to touch my knees. My toes appear miles away, almost blurry in the distance. I fear, if I continue at this rate, it might become painful just to extend my arms naturally by my sides without any sort of bending at all, and how tragic that would be!

This stiffness I refer to isn’t actually occurring in my physical body but in my spiritual muscles. It is a stiffness that effects far more than my own soul, but spreads out to the souls I also come in contact with. I can’t seem to extend my own arm to wrap around another. I can’t seem to reach past myself to help another up.

For the last six months I’ve been working on listening to my own heart and my dreams and not comparing myself to others.(http://read.ly/Gal6.4.MSG). I’ve been learning I have great value as a child of God (http://read.ly/Gal4.7.MSG). I’ve been learning to love myself, because until I do that I can’t love others. (http://read.ly/Gal5.14.MSG) I’ve been learning what it means to truly be and live free. (http://read.ly/Gal5.1.MSG) I have come a long way in my relationship with God and in living the life I want to be living, so you would think I would be flexible. But getting fit doesn’t mean getting flexible. Having strong muscles doesn’t mean you can instantly touch your toes.

“Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.” http://read.ly/Gal6.1.MSG

Stiff people can’t stoop down very comfortably and they also can’t afford the luxury of reaching out to someone else. Let me explain.

In my quest for personal freedom, I am getting passionate about sharing that freedom with others. I want others to know what I’m feeling, what I’m experiencing. I want others to come to the joy of living a free life like I have. A noble pursuit, right? Sure, but in my attempts to share this glory, I am naive, or perhaps prideful, in thinking that others need only take the exact same steps I am. I forget that those steps are being personally and intimately directed by God, and instead I translate them into a get-freedom-fast plan. You too can have freedom by simply following these rules. Two things happen as a result.

One, I am robbing people of the chance to intimately know their creator. I am putting myself as the middle-man and my own experience as the step-by-step plan to get to God, instead of letting others speak with God directly and wrestle with Him. I’m replacing the relationship with mere religion.

Two, and this is where my stiffness really sets in, I am becoming quite judgmental and cold-hearted in my spirituality because I am believing that if they fail to do what I am doing that then they are falling short of what God has for them. If I am not careful, my freedom can lead to a sense of elitism, where I have arrived, and I am looking down the noses of those who have not. I am stiff because I am not able to extend forgiveness. I am stiff because I can’t bend to allow others the time they need to talk to God about their own sin. Instead I feel this panicked necessity to rush in and tell them how they could be doing it all better, based solely on how God did things with me. Bottom line, when I’m spiritually stiff, I don’t trust that God can speak to others’ hearts like He spoke to mine. I feel like I need to do the talking for Him.

A friend shared this quote with me recently from the book Scandalous Freedom by Steve Brown.

“It isn’t our sin that is so bad (Jesus fixed that on the cross), but our stiffness. There’s something about religion that can make you cold, critical, and mean.”

If I become so stiff in my spirituality that I can’t gracefully put up with another’s sin, giving them time to work through it with God, then I am cold and critical and mean. Freedom should not usher in biting and ravaging as I point out the wrongs of others, but should inspire others to seek freedom for themselves. (http://read.ly/Gal5.15.MSG)

Lord help me to stretch daily, working on my flexibility as I interact with the people I do life with. Get me back to a place where stooping down and reaching out is not so difficult. Help me to trust you to bring others the joy and love and hope and freedom that you have brought me. Give me grace to realize my way is not the way.  Bring me an awareness of my stiffness. Help my toes to not feel quite so far away from my fingertips.