A Tightrope or an Open Field?

How’s life for you? What do you think of it? How do you approach it? What’s your worldview? Do you feel like you’re walking on a tightrope? Concentrating hard, not wanting to make mistakes, scared you’ll fall off? Do you feel like you are walking in an open field? A wide open space, things to enjoy, places to explore, a garden of opportunity? 

I’ve lived inside both metaphors. Of course they are deliberately chosen opposites (or are they?). I know which one makes me happier! You know, what makes the difference is attitude and belief. Before I was a Christian I was very superstitious (some will say I swapped one superstition for another) and I think that sense of being on a tightrope stemmed from that. Don’t spill salt, don’t step on cracks in the pavement, don’t walk under ladders, don’t put your shoes on the table, make sure you say “rabbits” backwards when you wake up on the first of the month. All ways of avoiding “bad luck”.  I mean, what nonsense! As if any of these (with the possible exception of walking under a ladder on top of which someone is cleaning windows) will make the slightest difference to anything! This fear transferred into my early Christianity. Note: fear, not superstition. Don’t want to upset God, must follow the laws, not only exactly as they are written but in every possible way you can apply them to every area of life. Not only me, everyone else – otherwise their salvation was dubious. (I was Pharisee and Puritan combined.) 

It took an awfully long time to grasp that grace triumphs over law. In my head I knew, but making that long 12 inch journey to my heart was another matter. For this reason I’m learning to apply the same grace to others as I should’ve applied to myself. God’s not a stingy, mingy, misery guts in heaven waiting to zap us for every teensy weensy mistake. He is a loving father who, along with Christ, has given us all things. There’s a wide range of experience which isn’t sinful that He wants us to enjoy. Far from being a God who can’t wait to punish us, His heart breaks when sinners won’t repent because He prefers to be merciful than angry.

Let’s drag Adam and Eve into this. God gave them everything and said they could eat from any tree in the garden but one. Does that sound meany-stingy-whingy to you? What an amazing thing that He opened up so much! But instead of being satisfied with everything, they let themselves be duped into disobedience by eating from that one tree they shouldn’t have.

The tightrope and open field are the same state viewed from a different perspective. The tightrope focusses on “thou shalt not” – mustn’t do this, that or the other – don’t want to upset God. The open field focusses on all the trees in the garden you can eat from – look at all God has given me to enjoy!

Does this mean we can do what we want and stuff the consequences? No! The things God does and doesn’t want us to do are still there. It’s a matter of where you focus. The Ten Commandments contain many “do nots” but they, along with all God’s rules, are summed up into this: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’^” (Matthew 22:37-39). If we love, we aren’t breaking God’s laws. That doesn’t mean we ignore the commandments. They define loving behaviour. The Spirit of love is in the heart of the Christian, as is the mind of Christ, and these, allowed to work in us, lead us to do the right thing. It’s absolutely not “anything goes”; it’s a trained, regenerate heart and mind that allows us to live a happy Christian life. 

The Lord is our Shepherd, He leads us in green pastures. Wide open spaces where we enjoy His presence and His benefits. We’re not alone when we venture into the world.