But with this occurrence of taking a celestial event and jumping through scientific, linguistic, hermeneutical, and geographical hoops to make it say something about a day that we’re not intended to predict, I’ve been more able to clearly trace a line of thinking (a path of totality, if you will 🤪).
Legalism is spiritual avoidance. It is an (usually subconscious) attempt to short circuit the work of growing in discernment and wisdom and exercising freedom in Christ joyfully.
Having a clearly defined set of visible and tangible actions to take gives one the illusion of being “spiritual” and obedient.
Whether or not you grew up in a fundamentalist cult (🙋🏼♀️), you can be prone to legalism if you are spiritually, emotionally, and mentally unsettled.
If you find it impossible to “sink into” and fully exist in the mundanity of your life, experiencing it instead as if you’re an outsider looking in, then you’re prone to a relentless search for ways to anchor yourself within it.
Legalism makes one bent toward extremism. It is often the unsettled legalistic that turns to extremely restrictive diets and that latches on to conspiracies that give them something to hyper-focus on, and that can religiously keep to certain habits and plans but struggles to actually be faithful in all of life.
These are habits that flow from a heart that is unsettled and that isn’t anchored in freedom.
These attempts at grasping for something tangible and measurable always fall short and the entire thing becomes cyclical.
Ask me how I know.
The remedy is in freedom.
The remedy is in settledness.
A settled heart isn’t reactive, impressionable, or blown about by every wind of internet “prophecy” because it isn’t reaching for a way to short circuit the work of faith by constructing arbitrary steps of “obedience” and “belief”.
A settled heart is measured, calm, confident, rational, and truly anchored.
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