“Oh, you’re religious”

When I returned from adventuring in Asia/Australasia twenty years ago, no-one was more surprised than I was, that God had got a grip on me.

“Oh, you found God on your travels, did you?”,

Was the question asked by some of the cynics, with or without eyerolling!

“No, I wasn’t looking for God, but he definitely got my attention”, was my reply.

Having never set foot in a church pre-thirty, it hadn’t occurred to me that church was where I would find the wisdom I had longed for. Perhaps I was just sick enough of living out the lies that life is supposed to be crap, you’re supposed to hate your job and drink and drugs is how to get through it all.

I was desperately wanting to find and believe there could be a better, richer, healthier, more fulfilling way to live out my days. I just never saw it coming from inside a church! I was completely ignorant about the Christian faith. All I learned from my parents was that ‘they didn’t want any ruddy bible bashers knocking at their door, thanks!’ And so when I went to church and the words of wisdom spoke of a template for life that made sense to me, I was eager to sign up.

I can’t honestly say I’ve never looked back because I’ve learned from slow, hard, repeated experience that knowing God does not exempt any of us from challenges! But it does mean that between him and the amazing family he has surrounded me with, I am never alone in walking and working through these challenges. And I can say, hand on heart, that this is way better than doing life on my own.

During these past twenty years, I’ve known God and been grateful and surprised that he knows and loves me, despite my messy past. I’ve also lost count of the number of times people have commented,

“Oh, you’re religious are you?”

This is usually in response to me mentioning something about church or God or Jesus.

It is sometimes said in a surprised tone or disappointed or intrigued, depending on the experience of the one commenting.

It irritates me when people say this. I realise I’m being hypocritical as I too had a totally unfounded yet negative idea about what a Christian was. (I am human after all, at least on the good days!)

To be fair, the term, ‘religious’ means something different to each of us. My irritation is based on the associations it evokes in me. When I hear the word ‘religious’, it conjures up images of man-made rules, rigidly adhered to, to protect man-made ego’s and agendas.

For me, while we can all be found guilty of making God in our own image, God is a God of love and compassion, above all else. He does give us a set of rules to provide protective boundaries for how we engage with life. And he uses his relationship with us, which is founded on his unconditional, unearned, undeserved love, to convey these boundaries to us in a way that we can recognise, they are for our benefit. He is also gracious, forgiving and patient enough to bear with us and help us as we learn, fail and try again, to live within these boundaries.

He is not like us; naturally selfish, impatient and unforgiving! Phew.

And he longs for every one of us to see and know that he sees, knows and loves us; the good, bad, ugly and indifferent within us. He wants us to receive his love, as this helps us to grow, heal and practice living more in his ways and less in ours.

And there aint any better gift in life than that of God’s love, healing, comfort, compassion, 1:1 mentoring and more.

I don’t call that religion. I call it the gift of a lifetime. And one that is available to us all.