Driving Outside the Lines: How Grace Steers Me in a New Direction

When you drive through an empty parking lot, do you stay in the lines, or do you forget the lines and drive at whatever angle you want to? Up until adulthood, I drove inside the lines. I used my blinker whenever I turned, and I stopped completely at every stop sign. I even drove at or below the speed limit. I was a model driver in every way I could be.

But something happened to me when I became an adult. I started to question the rules–just a little. Why do I have to drive in the lines, even though nobody else does? Do they know something I don’t know? Am I missing out on some hidden thrill that comes when you abandon all decorum and weave through the parking lot however you please? What do some yellow painted lines actually mean to me anyways? To anybody? If I could erase them, what would happen? Would we even know where to go?

I think I struggled as I grew up to really grasp the idea that the world doesn’t come in black and white, but rather an array of colors, textures, and designs. Growing up, I had a rule that I would never watch an R-rated movie. I accidentally watched “The Matrix” and purposely watched “Saving Private Ryan” with my dad, which I justified as a history movie (I hid under a blanket during the D-day invasion). I made even more compromises on this rule when I got to college. I don’t remember specifically which movies I watched, but I remember feeling strange about watching them. I used this verse from 1 Corinthians to justify my decisions: “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything'” (6:12). I convinced myself that watching these movies that I felt like I shouldn’t watch was lawful for me. My other Christian friends watched them, so why couldn’t I?

I didn’t realize that over the years I began to damage my conscience. I had turned 1 Corinthians 6:12 on it’s head. Instead of reading “not all things are helpful,” I read “all things are lawful for me”; instead of trying to stay as far away from the line as possible, I tried to get as close as I could without crossing it. As you can imagine, this ended in mental disaster. I frequently felt confused and betrayed–not by anybody else, but by myself. I became my own worst enemy, and what a cunning enemy I was!

What I didn’t realize as a young person is that the gospel isn’t about following personal rules or living by certain codes. I equated breaking a rule, any rule, with sin. This can be the case, but it isn’t always the case. I couldn’t see the forest, that big, beautiful gospel picture, because I was too focused on the trees, the everyday rules that stuck to me like glue. I didn’t focus on Jesus as “the way, the truth, and the life,” I focused on following the rules, which I thought would bring me to the way, the truth, and the life.

The gospel frees us from those hard-and-fast rules we make for ourselves. It’s almost like we build our own prisons. We put ourselves in these small boxes, “I must never do this, this, and this,” while there is an entire world us to explore. I discovered that I liked some movies, and I discovered why: they taught me about camaraderie, bravery, and perseverance in the face of trials. They delved into new worlds and showed me what amazing visual pictures imagination and skill could create. I watch movies now with an eye for beauty and friendship, and I wonder what they can teach me about people and their relationship with God. I still shy away from R-rated movies, not because my eternal salvation has anything to do with them, but because I know they might terrify me and possibly give me nightmares upon nightmares. They’re lawful, but not helpful. Can other Christians enjoy them and learn from them? Yes, but not me.

This is where I see the colors, textures, and designs of the world God created come into play. I can learn from the Christians who think differently than me, and I can teach them new things, too. I can have a lively debate with a friend about a movie she enjoyed, but I disliked, without wondering whether or not she is a Christian simply because we disagree. Letting go of hard-and-fast rules also keeps me from disqualifying someone from the faith. He likes to drive 90 miles per hour on back-country roads? If I say a Christian never drives above the speed limit, then he cannot be a Christian in my mind. I suppose what this comes down to is grace. Hard-and-fast rules leave out grace; there isn’t any room for mercy or understanding when you’re focused on keeping the laws you set for yourself and others. Gospel-minded thinking makes room for grace and allows for differences in personality and expectations. When we think in terms of the gospel, we can enjoy the differences inherent to being humans created in God’s image. God is by nature creative, and his creativity shows in every person, every sunrise, and even every blade of grass. Nothing looks identical, and it is glorious.

(I feel like I need to enter a caveat here: the Bible is clear that doing certain things is always sinful. Is it ever okay to murder a fellow human being? No. Is it ever okay to commit adultery? No. Is it ever okay to lie? It depends. In a fallen world, sometimes we need to make difficult choices. We can trust God to give us the wisdom we need in confusing circumstances. This is a helpful devotional on the topic from Ligonier Ministries.)

Is it okay to drive outside the lines in an empty parking lot? Frankly, I think we can ask better questions than that. Does driving outside the lines bring glory to God at that moment in time? What if a snow bank is preventing you from finishing your route down the isle. Is it better to plow through the bank, or swerve around it? Are you being careless in your disregarding of the lines, or are you trying to avoid a pedestrian walking inside them? God steered me in a new direction when he taught me that sometimes the best thing to do is to forego my self-imposed rules and drive outside the lines. Galatians 1:10 says, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

Likewise, God taught me that I need to remain sensitive to my own conscience, because “the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5). This line of thinking will become increasingly important as our society drifts farther and farther away from the Christian faith. I expect that in the not-too-distant future, Christians will have to break the rules our government creates in order to follow the Lord. We can do this with a clear conscience, because we aim to please God and not men, to live in liberty and grace instead of bound in legalism and law. Galatians 5:1 encourages us: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

Photo: Alexandru Acea on Unsplash