The other week I posted application questions from the section in Galatians where Paul is dealing with this question:  How can you, those who have been redeemed by Christ, who are adopted as sons and daughters, and who are full heirs of the promise, go back to slavery to the law again?  One of the possible answers that we considered was: Because I never understood how God sees me in Christ.  My view of God is slavish not sonish; lawish not gracious; marked by earning God’s love not resting in His love.  From now on, I want to find out more and more about what is true about me in the gospel and how I can live in the freedom purchased for me by the power of His Spirit within me.

In this post, I’m really not wondering if lawish (or sonish for that matter) is a word!  I’ve actually been more interested in what that looks like in our lives.  What are the lawish moments?  Do they surround us more than we even know – in our relationships, in our marriages, in our parenting?

I recently read the following in a book by Paul F.M. Zahl that was very helpful!  He gives two examples from everyday life about the reach of the law into our lives.  Enjoy!

“Maybe you write a lot of e-mails. Take this Dilbert exercise: do you ever find yourself fretting over the wording of an e-mail? You over-correct it; you make mistakes at the keyboard; you keep going back to make sure it’s right. When this happens, you can be sure that the person to whom you are writing is a figure of the law in your life. The person to whom you are writing has some kind of judging power, and it is this power that puts your e-mail under threat. I recently did an inventory of the e-mails I wrote on a particular day, and I noticed that three of them had caused me discomfort and vacillation. Each of the three was written to someone who in my mind was potentially accusatory. On the other hand, the messages that came naturally and were even on the fun side of my work, these flowed like water. In those, I was responding to grace – in the others, to law.

Consider your wardrobe. Whether you are a woman or a man, how you look is probably at least a little important. Most of the time appearance seems to matter very little to me. I wear the same old corduroys and polo shirt and loafers. In the winter I wear a blazer, and in the summer I wear a seersucker jacket. Every so often, however, I take more pains. But it is rarely love that causes this checking up. When I take pains with my clothing, it is almost always out of law. I know this because it is so uncharacteristic. I watch my lapel pins, afraid that they may signal a controversial cause. I may look too “preppy,” or maybe my tie is not acceptable – no outrageous “Jesus” ties allowed, and also none that stem from questionable organizations like a college eating club or a Protestant fraternal organization. In my case, grace is there when I am not worried about the way others will size up my appearance. Law is present when I begin to second-guess myself.”

I’m not guessing anyone is rushing to put the seersucker jackets back on, but can you relate to these examples?  Are there other ways that someone’s expectation of you, and not God’s, is affecting your life?  Write me back if you can think of others.

Eric