“Stop showing your ‘Yeah, BUT’.”
I am called to love God, my neighbor, and my enemy. Love is doing the right thing by them according to the Will of God not according to my will or what I judge as right. I have spent plenty of time making my own judgments about what is right and what is good. And in all those times of making those judgments, I was rarely right. When I am right, it is only because the Spirit is moving into alignment with the Lord.
And a lot of the time, I was a “Yeah, BUT” Christian. I would hear something that didn’t align with my interpretation of how I thought things should go and immediately went from listening to defense. I was more than happy to attack anything that might destroy my narrative with a “Yeah, BUT”. And The Bible is a large book filled with lots of things that can be taken out of the bigger picture of love and compassion and mercy and justify any number of “Yeah, BUT”s.
And I need to get my “Yeah, BUT”s out of the way of His Way because I can’t serve two masters. I can’t serve my way and His Way. I can’t serve the world’s way and His Way. I can’t serve the state’s way and His Way. I can’t serve a system’s way and His Way. So, I had to choose which way it was going to be.
And every time I had a “Yeah, BUT” I was putting limitations on who God is. I need to stop setting limitations on God. I need to stop putting God in a bottle like He’s there to grant my wishes and prayers. God isn’t going to fit my ideas of who He is. I need to fit His ideas of who I am.
And I am seeing a lot of folks struggle with this ideology. Folks that are constantly making God into their image rather than letting God make them into His image. And a lot of that comes from failing to love God, my neighbor, and my enemy.
I need to spend a lot more time on love than I do on being right. I need to spend a lot more time on love than I do justifying myself. I need to spend a lot more time on loving God, my neighbor, and my enemy. And then, if I do those things, if you do those things, if we do love the right way, God’s Way, then, just maybe, then we might get our BUTs out of the way. I am so tired of seeing The Truth deflected by “Yeah, BUT”s when we can just as easily listen and pray and read and know His Truth rather than justifying our ways.
I love you. I forgive you. Have a blessed and abundant day!