Law Games
I am a rule follower. I can’t help it. It’s who I’ve always been. And when I read a list of rules, I feel a self-imposed weight of expectation and tend to focus on the fact that I’ll never measure up. I can feel that a lot when I read the Bible and get overwhelmed in short order. What is supposed to be “good news” feels like a book of reasons that I’ll never be enough, and a road map for an exhausting pursuit of trying. I was asked once what James meant when he tells us to look into the perfect law. James 1:25 says “But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.” My answer to the question off the top of my head was that it feels like opening a big door just enough to see that what’s on the other side is too bright to keep looking at. It’s a “perfect” law and it’s too much. It’s something that makes me painfully aware of how I fall short.
But after my brain had time to process a better answer, that night I woke up at 3:30 in the morning with a lightbulb in my head. I sat up in bed and had the epiphany my answer was all wrong! It hit me like a ton of bricks that the description I gave about the law is not the perfect law at all! It was, instead, the old law. And these are the thoughts that filled my bed head about the law that sets us free…
We used to talk to couples about marriage and I liked to give an analogy of what I think is one of God’s formulas for relationship goals. Picture two people holding a long rope, and in the center of the rope is the prize of a good marriage. Our natural inclination is to pull the rope toward ourselves so that the prize comes in our direction. But when we do that, two things happen: the prize gets further away from the other person, and their natural inclination is to pull back. This creates a tension on the rope. That pulling requires constant attention, energy, and effort because we are constant-ly trying to fill a need in ourselves. It’s exhausting. And if you ever do get the prize, it might be at the expense of the other person. If you’re the person on the losing end, you can feel controlled and defeated. There really is no true fulfillment or harmony. But the only way to achieve those is counterintuitive. We not only have to STOP pulling the prize toward us, we have to take our end of the rope and walk toward the center and lay it down. If that has a tinge of familiarity, it’s because Jesus showed us how it was done. It makes no sense to our human minds, but what happens is this—when the pulling stops, there’s nothing for the other person to pull against. Pulling is no longer necessary. And it miraculously makes it easier and safer for the other person to also walk to the center and lay down their end of the rope. The game is up. It no longer needs to exist. With both people in the center, you realize you both can enjoy the prize together, and the sacrifice-of-self has paid off.
And I realized, maybe that’s the perfect law that we are to look into. The law that says give and it shall be given unto you. Be peacemakers and not fight for our rights. Carry one another’s burdens. Look out for the needs of others and not our own. Love your neighbor as yourself. The law that washes the feet of another that does not deserve it. The law that says the poor in spirit shall inherit the kingdom, the meek will inherit the land, the merciful will be shown mercy, a generous person will prosper, whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.
The old law puts us firmly on one side of the game of tug-of-war. When we sin, we are pulling the rope of self and the law pulls us back with judgement and penalty (albeit for our own good). And there will always exist a pulling between the two. But the new law has no need to play the game! The beauty is that when we follow the perfect law, we become relieved of the old law’s exacting and exhausting tension, and it becomes a win-win. It truly IS the perfect law and the law that sets us free, and for a recovering rule-follower like me, that, indeed, is very good news.