How to Not Drown in Do’s & Don’ts

Of the millions of hits I have received on this blog, the most popular by far is “20 Do’s and Don’ts for a Lasting Marriage”.

It’s not even a post, really, but a list of things put on my heart to share, as I have experienced marriage for twenty-eight plus years.

And it’s become clear over the last half dozen years, people like do’s and don’ts.

Yet, in todays world, rules of how to live can feel like shifting sand…

Nothing is concrete, nothing lasts. Like a mirage, lies and truths can be mixed into politics, position and even religion.

The once trusted have become disconnected from others. The man who held precidence slowly cowers to a world offering sustainability or protection.

Churches are bought by government, leaders are falling and exposed for their inner corruption…

And everything we thought was sure and true can assault us with promises of false security.

So. where do we turn when the truth is shifting? When the rules that governed our lives two years ago, isn’t the same this year, this week, or even this second?

What gives? What should we be learning?

How do we navigate this room where the lights are off, and hand granades are stepped on without even knowing it?

When friends become foes and evil rises up, squashing the places we have once held as promised and true?

Where do we go when the night slowly comes and all we have left is one small voice, whispering amongst the loud banging drums of five thousand conflicting opinions?

Driving the “Right” Direction

I was driving across my state a few days ago, with my mom and daughter. We went a new way, I wasn’t familiar with, though excited to celebrate a newly engaged couple.

The wedding is coming.

I did not know the way, but even amongst the talking, I could still hear “Siri”, my online navigation system, instructing me, “Turn right at the next stop”, “Stay straight, through one more traffic light”. 

She navigated me and I knew the way; not because I carefully studied the map, but because I trusted the voice of the one leading me. 

My only job was to keep my eyes on the road, ensuring I was listening, and follow almost brainlessly exactly the voice that was instructing me.

Yet today, we have become experts at trying to be our own navigation systems.

We can fear that we will end up in a desert, or lost at some dead end, if we don’t map our own way, think our own thoughts, plan our next turn…

Look for some escape mechanism in the crevasses of our own minds.

Self attainted power over the uncertainty.

We dig through news, scour Facebook, instruct and engage in private chat groups to get the scoop of this roller coaster system that goes a thousand different directions…

Yet truth is, we don’t like any of them.

We plan our own course as if Cortes, on a sea mission. Yet, forget there is no backward direction… 

We love our old comforts, so we listen to the do’s and don’ts, instead of our God-given inner navigational system…

Only to find ourselves stranded on an unfamiliar land without any direction…

A territory where we ache for the once predictable, the easy road of do’s and don’ts. The safe commands of leaders we thought we knew were capable of navigating for us.

And yet, why don’t we trust the True Navigator? The one hidden away in the quiet of the storm, beckoning to the “Siri of our Souls”, to lead us where we need to go?

Is it because WE want to be in charge? We long to be the Caption of our own ships?

Do we think the results depend on us? Our choices? Our decisions? Our own righteousness?

The Road of Grace and Truth

I wake up this morning with this thought on my mind…

Perhaps we get entangled because we depend on man to tell us do’s and don’ts, when the Lord wants to navigate this road for us?

The Shepherd will lead His sheep.

We like our stiff religion. Our strict divisions. Our numbing belief systems giving everything order; walls, ceilings, a line drawn. A life we can somehow depend upon, apart from the one that made us.

We try to climb, learn, grow and educate our way to becoming some kind of resurrected savior, where we build our Towers of Babel so that we can get the praise and glory.

But what if the road to where we need to be is more built on grace and humility? It’s in and THROUGH Some One, not stark commands from worldly forces telling us every single move to make?

What if no carnal man should ever lead our ship; no commander of this life has the right to navigate where it is we are going?

What if there is only One and His name is Jesus, that holds the right to lead us?

I press the button and coffee runs into my 5:00 a.m. mug. My heart warms at just the thought of taking that first sip.

House quiet, His navigation system loud, unlike that car a few days ago with two of my favorite women talking.

I see a list to my right, on my refrigerator. On the top it says in cursive, “Grace and Truth”.

Then, I read the bottom as I pull one sheet to look at it, “Grace and truth came THROUGH Jesus Christ”. (John 1:17)

The list of do’s and don’t crumble at my feet.

The hard lines of have to’s and need to’s, fall willingly at the knowledge that Jesus is the filter through which I can depend on everything.

I need not work harder, try harder, learn more, be better. I simply need to surrender to my Father who loves and leads me.

Like my car ride, I can find freedom in a Father who knows the way. A God who rests in the stars and carries the ship of my soul, even through cloudy days.

Burn the Ship

In 1519, Hernan Cortes set sail with 11 ships and 300 men.

However, upon his destination, he ordered that all the ships be burned. He was going forward, he wasn’t going back.

And I wonder if our list of do’s and don’t come from our struggle with which direction we are heading.

If many going forward today, long for a path to yesterday.

They crave the order, the predicatability. We think, “If I just obey the rules, follow the do’s and don’ts, we’ll go back to how things were.”

But friends, we are not going back.

We are not headed into our past. We must go onward, upward, forward, exactly to where God leads us, walking towards His full purpose for us.

The Rich Young Ruler in Scripture (Mark 10:17-27) wanted a list of do’s and don’ts. He thought that he could check off the boxes and ultimately earn his way to Jesus.

But Jesus said in summary, “Burn the ships”. Give away everything. 

He couldn’t. So, he went away sad.

Jesus never loved a religion bound in rules. The Pharisees and Sadducees picked apart their world and labeled everything “good” and “bad”.

But instead, Jesus walked THROUGH their small religious prisons, TOWARDS the weak and hopeless.

He became the door that all right and wrong go through. He gave us His Holy Word to lead us; a conscious directed by His Spirit.

The Way

Friends, the way isn’t obeying some harsh leader, some t.v. station, some imprisoning doctrine or bowing to some political system.

The Way leads to hope and freedom and it’s doorway is only through Jesus.

He is Grace AND Truth. He is the gate that brings peace and healing.

Have you accepted the truth that we are not going back? Have you burned your ships? Are you following some strict belief system promising you what tomorrow might bring?

Are you stilling your soul to hear His navigating system? Picking up His Word and letting Him talk to you, through the collapsing of everything build on man’s strength, instead of God’s?

Are you letting His heart, His voice be the light that turns on in the dark room full of hand granades exploding right and left? 

He will guide you step by step, lead you to the Promise Land. But first we must turn on the Light of His love, by surrendering, accepting we are not in charge.

Our do’s and don’t, our staunch religion can’t save us. Only Jesus knows the way.

He is the pathway through which grace and truth lead us.

He is true freedom.

So burn the ships. Don’t look back. He is taking His people to a holy place, one only those that live by faith will find and fully experience.

Get ready friends. A the Wedding Day is coming. You are His bride.

Tune your ears. His Sheep hear His voice.