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Following the rules....or not?


I'm a rules girl.  Well, mostly.  Something in my personality has always pushed me to follow the rules.  If the teacher said do it this way or that, I did.  No questions asked.  I'm the annoying driver who comes to a complete stop at the stop signs and uses my turn signal, sometimes even when pulling into my own driveway! I've been teased about this by own family and so I have made a conscious effort to pull into the driveway without using my turn signal.  Yep--I actually have to concentrate harder to NOT use my turn signal than to use it.  I know God has a huge sense of humor though, because he brought a maverick into my life and then decided I was to marry him.  David thinks rules are simply guidelines.  You can imagine the drama that has ensued in our marriage with the "rules" girl and the "I make my own rules" boy!

Something interesting has happened in our 24 1/2  years of marriage though.  This maverick has rubbed off on me and I now see many "rules" as mere guidelines myself.  I still see a need for solid rules in some instances, but like my husband, I've learned to back off from some "rules" and not embrace them so whole-heartedly.  In fact, some rules truly are "guidelines".  Learning to understand the intent of the rule, rather than just seeing the rule for what it is can be a tricky concept for some of us to learn, but I'm getting there.

Of course, when I say I'm a rules follower, you might assume that I'm a goody-two-shoes, that my house is kept perfectly organized and clean, that I always have dinner on the table at a certain time, my laundry is done and put away and that my children are all well-behaved and geniuses with outstanding academic accomplishments.  Ummmm.....wrong person.  Not me at all.  I'm  probably the antitheses of all of that.  Therein lies the problem with those of us who have perfectionist tendencies.  I can drive myself crazy trying to be all that I think I ought to be, but always falling short anyway.

Falling short?  Hmmm....that sounds familiar.  Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (HCSB 2003)  There it is again.  Falling short.  Does that mean I might as well give up because I'm just going to fall short anyway?  No...not at all. Romans 6: 1-2 asks this very question..."What should we say then?  Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply?  Absolutely not!  How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (HCSB 2003)  Ahhh...so there it is.  Yes, we all fall short.  No, we are not to continue to live in sin.  Yet in the perfectionist part of my brain, I have a hard time reconciling how to not live in sin while knowing I'm going to fall short.

That's where HIS grace comes in.  It comes in and covers us, even though.  Even though we didn't....even though we did...yes!  His grace reaches even me!  Thank you Lord each and everyday for loving me enough to know and experience your grace!

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