WHY I DO vs WHY I DON'T

When I first moved here to Phoenix, I was overwhelmed by the number of theological conversations I found myself in. I don't dare say "deep" because what is "deep."Intellectually stimulating? Thought provoking? Infuriating? Convicting? These conversations were both liberating and confining at the same time. How could I feel so free and yet so limited at the same time?

Most of these conversations revolved around who was in... and who wasn't. Theological differences in atonement and grace. Why we should do this or that and why it was against God's nature to allow fill in the blank. For a time, I craved these conversations. I was addicted to theological debates, the challenge of faith, the battle of intellect. And then... I just became exhausted. These conversations almost always turned to why we were against something or why we don't do other things. Maybe it was why we don't believe this or why I don't allow that. Either way, theology started becoming this weapon to slay the opponent or defend oneself instead of something that allowed us to be free from the battle. What an exhausting way to live.

For quite a while after this season, I ran away from every one of these conversations because I was so tired of either hurting someone with my theology or just tired of defending it. Why was believing in God such a burden? It wasn't meant to be that, right? Maybe I had turned my belief in Him into something it should never have been. I had turned my belief in God, the truth of God, into a series of "why I don't's" instead of "why I do's." I had become a person who was known way more for what I was against rather than who I was for.

Lesson learned I would much rather talk about why I do the things I do and who I am for over who I am against. Believe it or not, these conversations end in an entirely different place than when you're talking about what you're against when you speak in the "why I do's" your conversation ends almost always with the love and grace of Jesus. Why you talk in the "why I don't's," you find yourself talking about women teaching, the limited power of Jesus blood, and why love doesn't ultimately win. I don't have time for it anymore. I'd much rather talk about how Jesus changes everything for everyone. I'd sooner the bottom line of why I do what I do be because Jesus has already done everything for me.