the tygers outside the box

For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17)

At the men’s group yesterday, someone was talking about being put into a box in certain churches. There were things you could do, areas in which you could grow, but beyond that you had to stop.

It was almost like those old maps of centuries ago that had the known world outlined. Then there was the unknown world. In those sections, since no one knew what was there, someone would write “Here be tygers.”

They were afraid to go where they did not know what they would find.

The same is true with many churches. There are certain areas you can pursue, but do not go outside those areas. There are certain doctrines you can study, but don’t study too far. There may be tygers. And they are afraid of your letting tygers in.

Being put in a box always irritated me. I always felt there was somewhere I could go that I had not been before. I was always one with itchy feet, who wanted to see what was beyond the next hill, over the next mountain, down this road.

But I was raised in an extremely restrictive denomination. There were boundaries carefully laid out that you were not allowed to go beyond. It was not that someone had made a hard and fast rule, but it was an assumed thing, an unwritten code.

However, even though I was so restricted, even getting two degrees in this group, I still felt the need to grow further than they wanted. I wanted to see the tygers.

But I had to accept the consequences of doing so. That is the problem, of course. If you want to do the stuff that you deem to be interesting, you also have to take the flak for doing so.

And I grew. In fact I grew to a point that I grew out of that denomination and a lot of others. But I found freedom. I found the Spirit and I found freedom.

Finding the Spirit doesn’t necessarily just mean speaking in tongues and all that. I have known many who did that and more but were more restricted than I was in my first denominational home.

And it doesn’t mean that I unlocked all the mysteries of the age and stood head and shoulders above all others theologically. There is, after all, no way one can learn the mind of God fully. To think so is arrogance.

But the point is, even though I was in a box, I still grew. I took off that box and put on another, but had to realize after a while that I didn’t need a box. What I needed was God.

When I found him, he opened my box and gave me freedom in his Spirit.

I like this church. It is an open church that allows me to think my weird thoughts and even teach some of them on Sunday nights.

But ultimately, it is God who gives me freedom, not the church. And I praise his name.