Living In Authentic Relationship With God is Like Developing Spiritual Sea Legs

After years of being part of Institutional Churches with their written and unwritten and spoken and unspoken rules and codes of conduct meant to manage behavior and instill a sense of obligation to a religious institutional machine sometimes learning to live in freedom of authentic relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is so new and different that it is like the difference between walking on land and walking on water or what Sailors call "getting your sea legs."

I have spent some time on a medium sized commercial fishing boat my father owned as a hobby when I was child and also on charter fishing boats which are vessels people pay to be taken onto the ocean or a bay to fish for various salt water species my favorite being Ling Cod.

I know a little of what it is like to need to get sea legs until you do it is difficult to walk and sometimes stand until your legs become acclimated to walking on something that is constantly being moved by water that is in perpetual in motion in every direction seemingly at once.

I have also piloted boats in that setting and you are continuously correcting your direction to get to where you want to be, which is very much the same as learning to live life according to Spirit, because our flesh continuously tries to take over pulling in different directions.

When our flesh is not screaming for indulgence of our appetites it is trying to entice into pride by living according to some set of rituals and rules that we can adhere to with our own strength and wisdom. This is normal as we learn the value of saying no to the flesh and of living by simple relationship with God through dependence upon the leading and instruction of the Holy Spirit and not a set of rules and rituals.

Just because our spiritual house is built upon upon a rock does not mean that walking in the Spirit is the same as walking on land. When we live according to a set rituals, rules and obligations we also often become deceived into believing we have life with God figured out as we begin falsely believing if we do a, b, c, and d that is relationship with God.

A friend of mine I will call Frank describing this in his own relationship with God this week.

"Frank wrote now that I have left the system of religious obligation every time I spend time with God I feel like what I have believed about relationship with him before now is heretical."

My reply to him was the following: "Frank you are now on the narrow road. The road of religion is the wide road that most find and choose to travel. The narrow road of simple relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the one that few find and fewer chose to travel. You have found it and have begun walking on it. You are just learning what it means to walk in authentic relationship with God and his church without the false props of activity, ritual, and religious obligation. You are doing well. Rest in Christ's completed work."

I experience this and I suspect many possibly even all who have spent time genuinely trying to walk with God while part of what most Christians have known as Church have and or do experience this. Which once again I feel the need to repeat is a vehicle of religious obligation fueled by fear and shame.

The reason we experience this is we have tried to walk with God through rituals, systems, programs, and rules. That is opposite of walking in a genuine relationship that is fueled by love and therefore our relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has been limited until now as real relationship requires freedom from obligation, fear and shame.

As a result even our understanding of the instruction we have received has been limited and often even misunderstood, because we have tried to understand it through our intellect instead of through relationship. Therefore as we begin authentic relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and with the true church/ecclesia outside of false institutionalized structures our understand often changes altogether or begins to expend and we begin seeing just how vast God is and relationship with Him becomes new and fresh everyday.