escape

At times I have wanted simple answers to important questions but, ultimately, I'm glad that the answers aren't simple. I was part of a group that wanted to simplify the message and what it meant to be a Christian. It's kind of exciting and refreshing at first to concede to that influence. It's a known challenge. Ultimately, it was a kind of enslavement and deception. It wasn't true. Thank God. When I was part of it, I thought that this is reality. It was a small, constrained world. But I thought, well, God made this world and decided on the rules, so I need to accept them. I thought that I would be in that world for the rest of my life and beyond because leaving was unthinkable. 

It was liberating when the reality of my life was no longer confined to those boundaries and rules.

Even though I no longer agree with them, I don't regret my time with them because it was part of my journey. My commitment from the start was to God, and that remained the case, and I think the more I sought God and pursued my relationship with God, the more that groups rigors and processes seemed empty, soulless, mechanical - not 'of God'. Drawing closer to God drew me away from them.