Healing from the Hurt of Legalism, and the Folly of Running too Far.
Written by Rebekah Fox, edited by Abbie Vital; for distribution on The Vital Fam.
Growing up I honestly believed I lived a super normal Christian life and that our friends and family were just your average followers of Christ. We were homeschooled, so surely we weren’t raunchy and debased like our public school friends (ahem...sarcasm), but that didn’t make us weird, just good Christians. Right?
As I got farther into high school and college, a lot of things happened, too much to get into, but it resulted in a large falling out with many of the friends I grew up with. As I moved forward and made new friends, I had this epiphany...I had been sheltered! (shocker).
I don’t say this in any bitterness or anger, my parents were new Christians when they had me & my brothers, and when they made deep friendships with those of whom we had a falling out. They had rough upbringings and history before Christ, so this conservative bubble felt safe. Christians are the complete opposite of the way they had grown up, or so they thought.
So the “anti-make-up, cover up or you’ll cause the men to stumble, marry who I tell you to, children submit to your parents no matter what, parents control your kids so they never sin and are guaranteed to go to heaven, don’t ever be friends with people outside of this group, other Christians aren’t as Christian as us” group felt, well, safe.
But, the bigger problem was when I realized how absolutely wrong these people were for the things they taught. How hurtful it was to Christians and non-Christians alike.
I tried to stand up to the false teaching; I would protest saying, “You’re representing God so wrong by saying that if someone smokes cigarettes they can’t be saved! That’s the wrong issue to be focusing on! God loves them as long as their heart is with Him and not the cigarettes”. I knew I was right but I didn’t know what to do with all that anger towards the misrepresentation. Sure I was angry with God for a while, as well as people being bad examples of Him, but that’s a story for another time, and He restored my relationship with Him over some years.
So then how could I convince the conservative Christian circle that God loves all those people that they think He doesn’t love, or can’t? How can I show them that people who do all those “horrible, sinful things” can be, and often are, His beloved Children? I got it. I’ll become one of them!
Ok I’ll admit it was not my brightest idea, but I had to do something with all this anger, and resentment, and I had to prove them wrong. I felt I had a lot to prove and the power to do it.
I quickly turned all my modest loose jeans into the shortest shorts I could find, and all my t shirts became crop tops to match. I went from never going on a date in my life to going out with any guy who seemed interested, even if I wasn’t. I traded in never thinking about smoking, to sneaking cigarettes out of my dads truck (sorry dad) and from only having a sip or two of alcohol, to one too many when I could. I replaced my kind words with every cuss word in the book. I wasn’t kind, I wasn’t nice, I became a snarky ***** get laughs at anyone’s expense. I could go on, but I won’t.
All this wasn’t to rebel in the normal sense of rejecting God, but instead I thought I was
defending Him. I became what they thought was unlovable to prove to them that God isn’t who they say He is. But my plan quickly backfired when I realized I wasn’t proving anything, I was slipping away.
I wanted so badly to be opposite of the legalistic crowd, that I was quickly letting myself step, and step, farther away from God in order to see if I could still hear Him when he
called me. When I would take a step away from Him and call, He would of course answer and I would reply “see! He doesn’t care if I got a little dirty! He still hears and answers me!” and I really thought I was solving something. But eventually, I stopped calling. I got distracted. I wanted more.
More to smoke, more to drink, more dates, more attention, more laughs. Don’t get me
wrong, I got that, but it didn’t feel as good as I thought it would. Yes God still loved me and
came when I called, but not with the joy I was hoping He would. Why not?? I was proving to
those people that He’s way more than what they presented Him as. I was defending Him!
But he gently reminded me, He doesn’t need defending. He doesn’t need me to be anything for Him, I don’t need to clean myself up and I don’t need to dirty myself to test His love. Because that’s what I was really doing.
I wasn’t trying to prove to them that God would still love me, I was trying to prove it to myself.
The reality was that after years of being told that if I did these things God simply couldn’t
care for me, I had to test it out myself. No one else was listening when I called out to Him, only He and I. Just like a child, I wanted to test my boundaries, and when I didn’t get my way (i.e. a date not going well or friendships falling apart even when I prayed over it) I threw a fit. I went deeper into what wasn’t sin for some, but was for me because I was using it as a way of getting at God. The way you dress doesn’t save or damn you, but when you do it out of spite, it surely shows the condition of your heart, and mine was quickly rotting.
I soon realized that if I didn’t get this under control I would end up exactly where so many around me expected me to, and my pride couldn’t let that happen. Because, despite what some people say, I think being stubborn and strong willed can be a great thing, and I was determined to have a healthy relationship with God, whatever it took. So I handed it all over.
Not just the superficial stuff, but the hurt and bitterness too. I confessed that I let my hurt
drive my relationship with Him, but I wanted to be a Christian simply because He had never
left my side through it all. I wanted to live my life how He wanted me to and no one else, not
myself and not those around me. Only Jesus.
The beautiful thing about that was the balance and peace that came with it. I didn’t need to give up to anything and I didn’t need to give in to anything. I could drink if I wanted to* and that didn’t damn me to hell, but I didn’t need to get drunk because I felt safe and secure. I can wear shorts above my fingertips or leggings or whatever, but I don’t need the attention that those things could bring, because God defines my worth, no one else. I can get upset, but don’t have to cuss to get my point across, because God is my defender.
*I want to add a quick note too that this in no way applies to those who genuinely struggle with things as we see in Romans 14:13-15, if someone has, or is struggling with something like drinking, refrain while around them as a brother/sister in Christ!
Don’t get me wrong, to this day when I feel that a Christian is being legalistic, my immediate response is to run and do that very thing just to make them mad and prove that I’m still Christian even when I do things they think are a sin. But then I remember, intention is everything and my intention in life is not to tear down those around me or to defend God, but to build a genuine relationship with him and represent Him well.
I can do a lot of things, but I don’t have anything to prove.
“Everything is permitted”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permitted”—but not everything builds up.” I Corinthians 10:23
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This article was written by Rebekah Fox, a friend of mine & fellow follower of Christ. She is the founder of Standfast Magazine and is currently living in Northern Italy alongside her husband Paul, and daughter Violet. They are serving at their local church in Italy, following God’s call to be missionaries to their community.
Please pray for them as they are new parents, in a foreign country, seeking to faithfully follow Christ and serve well. Pray for deep friendships, ease further learning Italian, and assimilating into the culture, and for guidance, encouragement and wisdom for their family.
If you’d like to follow along with what they are up to, check out their website at https://vistavolpe.org & give them a follow on Instagram @paulandrebekahfox !
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