Coloring Outside the Lines

Well, Mike did it to me again.

Have you ever received a coloring page from a small child? If not, I'm sure you have seen one at some point in your life. I know I have. So what do they look like? They are just a bunch of scribbles of 2 or 3 colors run all over the ouline of some cartoon. There is no trying to stay inside those dark black lines. No choosing of what color would look the best for this area or that. Nope, just a bunch of scribbled lines all over the page. This youngin' didn't know any better. He/She was too naive to know what they were "supposed" to do with those crayons and that sheet of paper.

Mike writes: "Most of my life I heard the message loud and clear that Christianity was all about coloring within the lines and coloring well. If I was a good Christian, if I loved Jesus and wanted to please him, if I read my bible, prayed and went to church, then I would get better and better at coloring. And if I lived a long and godly life, I would evenually be able to draw close to the perfect drawing. Wherever that mesage came from, it was a lie."

I agree with Mike. I'm 38 yrs old and my drawing still looks like that of a small child.

Mike also writes: " ...God's grace is so outside the lines of our understanding that we can only stand in awe and wonder. Christianity is not about learning how to live w/in the lines; christianity is about the joy of coloring. The grace of God sees beyond the scribbling to the heart of the scribbler..."

Just as I have "scribbled" about in some of my previous blogs, most of everything I have been taught has been about "coloring inside the lines." I as a youth pastor for 10 yrs taught my teens about the importance of coloring inside those lines. Does that mean God has no standards? Absolutely not! But what is more important, the "law" (the rules/standards) or the person? Isn't that why we need grace? Isn't that what grace is all about? God set the standard and we couldn't live up to it. We failed...we sinned. But that is what makes grace...grace. We are more important than the "lines." And, boy, does that bring relief to my heart and mind.

Because in the end, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It only matters what God thinks. And when it comes time to hand in my "drawing" (what I have done with my life), I'm sure its gonna look a lot more like a young child's coloring page than it will a paint by numbers page that has been done to perfection. And guess what I'm gonna hear? "Well, done my good and faithful servant."

So no matter how many times I screw up, betray people I care about, get stabbed in the back, get fired from jobs, get told I'm "not safe for kids to be around" because something is wrong with me because I'm not married at this age, sin, sin again and again... I will listen for that still, small voice that says, "my grace is enough". And I will keep on coloring.