When I was a little girl, I asked my mom how to spell “hafta”. “Hafta?” she asked. “Use it in a sentence and then I can tell you.” I said, “I hafta go to the store.” She laughed to the point of tears. Her tears were from laughter, my tears were from hurt and embarrassment. There were always so many “haftas” and I tried really hard to accomplish them all, but I always came up short.
When I became a Christian as a young girl, there were even more “haftas”. I had to read my Bible, tithe, witness, attend church, pray, serve at church and help people. I learned how to serve and by the time I was a young adult I was a tired, defeated, wounded warrior in the Kingdom of God.
I knew I was going to heaven, but I certainly wasn't experiencing the abundance of the Christian Life.
One day I just stopped it all. I didn’t go to church. I didn’t pray. I stepped down from all my church responsibilities. I just quit. This was not the abundant Life I had hoped for. I was done.
Thankfully, God saw my hurt and confusion. He saw that I was trying to live out the Christian life from my own strength. He was okay with my decision to quit. In fact, He was delighted!
He wanted me to be free from my performance perspective so He could show me a better way - the freedom way.
He showed me a passage in Colossians where it says, “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.” Colossians 2:6-7 (NASB) What a contrast that is to what I had imagined the Christian life was supposed to be like! The life I was living was one of hardship, burden, struggle, agony and pain. My life was very difficult. I tried hard but never seemed to succeed. I had certainly never experienced the kind of abundant Life that Jesus promised.
I’ve come to discover that God wasn’t expecting me to achieve things for Him through living by the rules of the Christian life, but instead, by depending on Him for His wisdom, guidance, and ability to flow through me. That realization has changed everything for me.
Another verse that has meant so much to me these last ten years is in Galatians, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free.” Galatians 5:1a (NASB) I am now free from law because I understand that God accepts me as His child, not as an expert in performance.
I’ve exchanged a life of stress and chaos for a restful relationship. I now walk in victory instead of constant failure, and freedom instead of bondage.
The only thing I “hafta” do now, is trust that I am no longer bound to my own set of rules and I am rooted in Him and am free to allow His Life to flow through me.