Learning by Law

As a follow-up on my previous post, I constantly trying to learn and grow as a Christian and as a leader. Lately, I find that there are too many spots to try and clean up in my life. There are too many details about my communication and leadership that I need to tweak, aspects about me that aren't quite as good or as effective as they could be. I'm humbled by the constantly renewed realisation that I don't know half as much as I think I know - and that's very tiring to me.

It's like my days as a custodian at London Gospel Temple, my old church. After everyone had gone home on Sunday night, I had to the clean the numerous glass doors at the entrances to the building. These glass doors would be layered with fingerprints from people pushing against the glass all day long, rather than using the push bar in the middle of the door. I would use a ton of Windex and paper towels, rubbing out every inch of each door. And even after a full half hour of cleaning, I would invariably change my viewing angle just a bit and I would see yet one more fingerprint that I hadn't seen before. You just had to change your angle ever-so-slightly and voila, more prints.

That's what I've felt like lately. I'm intent on cleaning the glass in my life, but there's always one more print and one more grey fleck to clean up. Off-handedly, my dad reminded me that this is what happens when you live under the Law. You get tired, you lose perspective, you lose motivation...it's Death. Living under the Law is Death. Yes, I need to clean up the fingerprints in my life, but not by fixing each little thing like it was one more rule. I need to live in the Tree of Life and find freedom in Christ, I don't need to me another rule for myself.

The funny thing is, I have to learn how to not live under the Law and I can't learn this lesson under the Law. I need to learn in a healthy way, I need to learn how to learn in a healthy way.