I am afraid to ask this question: What does it mean to rely on God? To draw strength from Him?

By asking this question, I may reveal that beyond my ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ façade, I am only as close to God as the person next door is. And I can’t have that. Not as a committee member and bible study leader in OCF. I am to be seen as a person of a certain level of spiritual maturity. I dispense advice about a person’s walk with God, the to do’s and do not’s. Surely I must know the answer to that question! I tell people everyday it’s the answer to all their problems! Asking that question would just prove that I am a fake…

Would it?

Maybe…

Maybe not.

If by humbling myself, and be unconcerned about what others may think of me, I ask the question and find the answer, won’t my faith get strengthened? And the next time I tell someone to rely on God, I truly know what it means to do so.

In Christianity, we have many clichés – pray, trust God, read the bible… All these are stereotyped answers for every bible study. I think the reason why they are repeated so often is because
1) The are the fundamentals of the Christian faith
2) Many of us are just not doing enough to these!
When I asked someone what it meant to rely on God, he asked me if I prayed enough. So when is it enough? How many times should we pray a day? 3 times like Daniel or 5 times like the Muslims? How many chapters of the Bible should we read each day?

We like to quantify stuff and often it becomes pretty legalistic. But believe it or not, our God is not a legalistic God. The Jews in Jesus’ time were big on legalism – you only needed to forgive a fellow Jew 4 times and then you are free to hate him for life (ok, the Bible does not put it that way, but you get my gist). When Jesus’ disciples asked Him how many times are they to forgive their brother/fellow Jew, (hold your breath now), Jesus said seventy-seven times. Some translations say seventy times seven, that makes 490 (Matthew 18: 21-22). The thing is Jesus was not giving them a definite number, for the only way you could keep track of 77, much less 490 times you forgave a brother, is to have a logbook. Jesus meant that they will have to keep forgiving their brother.

Forgiving is not the same as condoning. Jesus does not advocate self harm by letting oneself be hurt again and again by the same person. If someone is hurting you, please do not allow yourself to be abused in any manner. However, forgiveness I believe is more for yourself than the other person. By forgiving, you are freeing yourself of whatever hold that hurt has on you. You are doing yourself a bigger favour than you are doing for that person by forgiving him/her. Withholding forgiveness leads to bitterness and many a time that will prevent you from loving others and feeling loved in return.

I see that I have gone off-tangent. Haha… Oh well, whose thoughts do not? But even though I have not fully understood what it means to rely on Him, I am learning day by day to surrender to His will. I guess the day when I surrender my all to Him and give Him full control, is the day I have learnt to rely on Him and trust Him.

Typing this at a later date, I see that I could very well have been in the shoes of one of the Pharisees during Jesus’ time. The Pharisees were a bunch of very religious people and their refusal to humble themselves caused them to miss out on eternity. Let’s not be religious about Christianity, let it be about being and not doing.