As I poured myself a bowl of granola this morning I smiled in anticipation of how good it would taste and how much I like to eat it. Yet even as I finished pouring I thought to myself, “I shouldn’t eat this today. I should save this granola for a morning when I’m on the run. It’s the weekend and I have enough time to make oatmeal.” Then I caught myself. “Granola can be eaten only during the week and when I’m in a hurry? Says who?!”

Recently my son and I watched The Maze Runner, a movie about boys who have no choice but to make their own society. “Those are the rules,” Thomas, a newcomer, is told by the other boys when he wants to challenge the status quo and do something different. There is no awareness by the boys saying “those are the rules” that they made the rules and they can change the rules. The fear of change, of destabilizing the current set-up, keeps the rules in place, even when a change could help their situation.

I know that I have plenty of rules that run my life, rules made by me or made by others and internalized by me; some helpful (“look both ways before crossing the street”), some not. There are plenty of rules in the Bible, some helpful in our present day (“pray without ceasing”, “love your neighbor as yourself”), some not. Jesus was a big questioner of authority and he upset the status quo by holding people to the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law. Next time I hear myself saying “I should (or should not) do this-or-that” I will try to stop and ask by whose authority the rule was made and whether I need to follow it in this case. Rules of the road? A good idea to follow them! Rules that are habits, put in place because “we always do it this way”? Maybe it will be time to shake things up, toss out those rules, and feel the freedom from judgment that Christ’s example provides.

Lord, help me to focus on the spirit of your law rather than the letter of my rules. Help me to give up the “shoulds” and “should nots” that limit me in artificial ways. Amen.