I obey your statutes, for I love them greatly. I obey your precepts and your statutes, for all my ways are known to you.

Psalm 119:167-168

Dear God, I was part of interviewing people lately to be part of a board, and one of the questions they gave us to ask was about a time when the candidate had to bend or break the rules. One of the candidates could not come up with an example of a time when they broke the rules. He said, “I’m a rule follower. I’ve been known to question the rules or try to change the rules if I thought they weren’t right, but my personality is to follow the rules.”

When he left, there was a lot of discussion about that one particular answer. I have to say, it’s probably similar to how I would have answered. But the people in the room started punting out all of the ways we break rules every day. Minor traffic violations. Little lies we tell. So yes, in that context, I can see where I’m a rule bender.

As I’ve thought about it, I don’t think there’s any way to be a rule follower 100%. Like in negotiations, when you start at an extreme, I think some of our rules are set at an extreme so that even a bending of them will still keep us within societal norms.

Are your laws the same? This last week, I participated in a deception of someone with some other people. We did it so we wouldn’t hurt the person’s feelings. I was talking to one of my “co-conspirators” later about how there was a part of us that felt a little bad about it, but we wouldn’t have done it differently because we love this person too much to have hurt their feelings. It was what we southerners call a white lie (maybe that’s not just a southern term).

Then there are the important laws that I break. Hatred. Judgment. Lust. Coveting. Lethargy. Idolatry. Yes, if I’m honest with myself, I break rules all of the time—big and small. I might like to think that I’m a rule follower, but maybe that is just part of my facade. Perhaps my heart is more corrupt than I want to admit.

Father, forgive me. Continue to break me, shape me, mold me, and fill me. Use my life to refine out the dross. There’s a line in an old Amy Grant song that says, “We’re just here to learn to love Him.” Help me to learn to be the best lover of you that I can be so that I might be as effective for you as I can be as long as you have me here, and I’ll be a great worshipper of you when I get to the other side of the Jordan.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen