Successful Living: Bend but don’t break

However, the old way may no longer be valid. There was a time when everyone had a horse and only rich people had a car. The buggy and carriage makers flourished. Now everyone has a car and only rich people have horses. And good luck finding a buggy or carriage maker. There was a time when typewriters were the instrument of choice for clear, concise writing and copy development. There was a tactical feel to the process of putting words on paper. Now we put words on a screen through a keyboard whose only resemblance to a typewriter is the layout of the keys.

I’ve heard it said the only constant in this world is change. Change is a part of life whether we like it or not. However, one thing I’ve learned is God blesses us through change. But that’s a slightly different subject. It’s our resistance to change I want to address.

The same winds that blow the palm tree blow the mighty oak, as well. However, the oak tree does not have the flexibility to bend like the palm. Nor does it have the branch or leaf structure to minimize loss during hurricane-force winds. What causes a temporary discomfort to one can be totally devastating to the other. One bends while the other breaks.

My internal theology or personal philosophy is like a tree; it is a structure that has grown and matured over time. As winds blow and challenge the tree’s ability to stand, new thoughts and ideas are going to come to challenge my beliefs. The question is, will I bend, or will I break?

Allow me to give you an example: If you had asked me years ago about the blessings and curses of tithing, I would have told you Christians are subject to both, i.e., if you tithe, then you are blessed and if you don’t, then you are cursed. I could even give you scripture to support that opinion (reference Malachi 3:8-12). But, after learning more about grace and the new covenant instituted by the shed blood of Jesus, I had my position challenged. Would I bend or would I break? Would I hold to what I perceived as truth for years, or would I allow a different interpretation entrance? Here’s what I learned: The curse of the law was abolished through the sacrifice of Jesus.

“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us — as it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’ so that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14 (MEV]).

It was a new thought and new idea, the fact that we are redeemed from the curse of not tithing. I had heard it preached such that if I didn’t tithe, the curse would be on me. There were times where I might not have had faith in the blessing, but I certainly had faith in the curse. Now, I was asked to believe the curse wasn’t in play, but the blessing still applied. It was a fundamental shift in my thinking. Would I bend, or would I break?

Another way to ask it, would I hold to my traditional teachings, or would I accept the truth as written in the Bible? As I learn more about the new covenant of grace, I realize how traditional teachings have kept me in bondage. Bondage to a legalistic covenant that no one could uphold. It took Jesus Himself to fulfill the law, the Mosaic law, so that we could be set to live under the new law, the law of love. And He gave us the Holy Spirit to live inside of us so we could love our neighbor as ourselves.

As we grow in the Lord, He is going to reveal new truth to us, like the sun rising over the horizon. To us, it may seem to be new truth, a new morning.

But it’s just truth that is new to us, like the morning sun we’ve yet to see. The question is, when presented with this new truth, this new light, will you bend to it, or will you break?