(a 4 minute read) Hailey pulled her laptop and pressed play for a video about a 16 year old girl that’s been sent to detention at school. You see, she broke the school’s rules, by wearing a thin spaghetti strap shirt at school. Hailey’s sister Sierra, was engrossed into the video and she even shed a tear when the girl had inscribed “I am not a distraction” on her arm, in protest to the school rules.

Walks in mom, and interested in what her girls are watching, she asked to see the video.

During the video, Hailey’s mom expressed that school rules are made for a reason, and if someone breaks them, then a punishment is a good reminder that the rules are there to be followed. Sierra loudly interjected, “You are missing the point mom, this is about girls being told how to dress and how not to dress so they are not a distraction to ……..” Sierra did not finish her sentence when she heard her mom say, “Look at those tight leggings, they leave nothing to the imagination.” Hailey’s eyes were wide open as she hollered, “The leggings are not part of this discussion.”

Their aunt Shannon happened to have witnessed the later part of this discussion and said, “That’s why I favor school uniforms, it minimizes any of this stuff happening.”

“School uniforms suck”, Hailey objected, but heard her mom’s voice, “Some uniforms are quite nice.”

Hailey’s mind was completely astonished and she wondered to herself, “How did we deviate from an altruistic subject as women being blamed for distracting men to a mundane subject as school uniforms……………

You see my dear reader, this is what happens when we the people feel the need to control something; we create rules. They are easy. Fair or unfair, justified or unjustified, they are easy.

Think of how many rules are built into the Jewish faith? Dare I say a thousand? Then comes Jesus, a Jew, and says, and I paraphrase, “NO RULES”. You may say, wait just a second, Jesus gave two commandments; Love……………….. & Love………………. and the 2^nd is as important as the 1^st. The funny thing is we refer to them as commandments all the time. If I asked you, “Is Love really Love if it is forced?” If you say, “No it is not Love if it is forced”, then how can we say we are commanded to Love?? Do you now see why I paraphrased what Jesus said as “NO RULES”!

It is scary to have no rules, we the people feel we’ll lose all control, yet we are commanded to have no rules. Do we listen? Do we abide? Do we follow that?  You know the answer to that.

A quick example; we have 13 letters from Paul in the NT written over the last 12-15 years of his 25-30 years ministry. In his 2^nd letter to the Galatians Paul said, and I paraphrase, “If I think I can achieve something through following the law then Christ died for nothing.” Then towards the end of his 13 letters, there is 1^st and 2^nd Timothy. Look at them and decide if Paul after some 25-30 years in ministry felt like maybe humanity needs rules after all.

God wants us to choose to live well with NO RULES, to simply live well because we choose to, not because we have to.

Let us not deviate from the altruistic and harp on the mundane, let’s focus and work diligently to live well, live kind, live lovingly, live givingly, live compassionately, live intentionally, live for others, not because of the rules, rather because THERE ARE NO RULES.