Joyful Transformation

One of my favorite songs (of the non-Christian music genre) is Molly Hatchet’s Flirtin’ with Disaster. (Everyone who does not know the song or who Molly Hatchet is please don’t comment to tell me that! But it is on the new Dukes of Hazzard soundtrack so maybe??) I was just wondering this morning if that said something about my personality. I actually think it is just a feel good, drive fast, kind of song, but is there some hidden reason I like it? Makes me wonder.

There is a part of my personality that always likes to push the envelope. I like to get right up on the edge of rules, and maybe occasionally even fracture a couple. I mean really, the rules were made for someone else anyway, right? So, knowing that my personality is geared in this way you have got to wonder how I have made it this long in the C of C. I mean, we are the champions of the “thou shalt not’s” aren’t we? Perhaps that is why my frustrations have been played out in other areas of my life. Perhaps that is why I embrace any type of change with open arms.

When I was growing up, to question or even entertain the possibility that someone else might have some things right was akin to blasphemy. I can remember sitting up at night crying because I couldn’t convince my friends not to be Baptist. I was ashamed because I couldn’t even make a good argument to them. Sometimes I wonder how I had any friends. We really were that bad! Are we still? Perhaps the way we flirt with disaster is not by loosely playing with the rules. Maybe the real disaster is that we have made the rules the object of our worship. We have placed what we think is “right” above the souls of men and women.

While I don’t discount the commands of God, I know that they must be obeyed; I pray that I will always put people first. That I will look at the heart like Jesus did. I pray that I will realize other people are a lot like me, not perfect by any stretch, but trying, seeking, wanting to be pleasing to God.