Extreme Rule Following

Photo by Dawid Małecki on Unsplash

I have been an extreme rule follower for a lot of my life.  On the surface this may not sound so bad because it's good to follow rules right?  But an extreme rule follower like I have been not only follows the rules, but makes up lots of extra rules to follow, and has a tendency to think someone else is doing it (whatever it is) wrong because they aren't following my, obviously correct rules!  It's all very exhausting and is, I think, a form of perfectionism.

I remember once, long, long ago when I was still in high school -- there was a girl I knew who belonged to another church who was fasting.  She did this regularly, and for whatever reason her fast days seemed to fall on school days.  I had been taught that fasting was going without food and drink for 24 hours.  This girl was drinking juice!  Naturally, I needed to point out that she was fasting wrong.  What she was doing really wasn't fasting at all.  I still cringe over that.  She was not exactly following the rules that I knew, but she was fasting according to the rules she knew!  That is impressive!  It was probably really hard to do that at school, especially with people like me giving her a hard time!

I have been learning over the years that there really is a Spirit of the Law.  A reason a rule was made that is more important than the rule itself.  Nowadays if I tried to do a "real" fast I would end up feeling sick, with a headache, and it would take a couple of days to recover.  It would also make it so taking my medicine would be a bad idea, and not taking it is also a bad idea!  Everyone and anyone could tell me I am fasting wrong -- and according to what I was taught (which is NOT the only way to fast) they would be right!

So now I have to be creative in how I fast.  I try to follow the spirit of the law, and give up a bad habit, or something that I crave, or at least eat differently -- anything to remind me to pray for something specific, or to try to come closer to Christ -- and just like the girl in high school, what I do really does count as fasting.  So here's to watching out for extreme rule following and NOT deciding someone else is doing it wrong.  We are not in charge of the rules everyone else follows, and it would be good to focus on the reason behind the rules we follow rather than the rule itself.