I’m a recovering legalistic know-it-all who pretended to have all the answers. I’d use Christianese lingo like “because it’s in the Bible” with finality to shut down questions, doubts and conversations. I never worried about wrong answers because I didn’t consider that they existed. Therefore, there was no point in asking questions, having discussions. I heard, believed and claimed it all to be true. What I was told, was. What I believed, was. That was my religion.

But that was my religion.

And then I wanted more, a relationship with God. A God who wanted more from me than to believe blindly. A God who wasn’t mad at questions because they led me to a deeper relationship with Him as I dug in, learned, researched and went after the answers myself. It mattered more - He mattered more - as I turned away from the religion that was built for me and turned instead toward a relationship I developed on my own.

My heart for people changed. I loved them more and loved them faster. I loved first without waiting to see if it would be reciprocated. I loved them enough to stop changing them and grew a fervent desire to change the church that was for them instead. My heart and my life became ever more so about people. Not even people I know, but people in the large sense. People I’d never considered. People I would never come in contact with. People as humanity.

Religion puts people in boxes. If you fit the box, you’re in. The criteria you have determines the scope of ministry you’re capable of doing. And if you want to be in the box, you have one of two options: you can change yourself to fit or you can break trying to get in as you are. You may think you’ll end up with a lot of people in the box, or your church, or the grand total of people you’ve brought to salvation - whatever your box may be. But you’re not left with a thriving group of people. The result is not more people in the box. You’re left with damaged people and broken parts of the ones who couldn’t conform. It makes the crowd outside of the box larger and eventually that crowd will start looking more intently at this crammed group of people, the disfigured ones at the feet of the clones they could not become. They’ll start asking their own questions like “Why were we trying to get in there in the first place?” And then they’ll move on, live their lives and do their own things. They’ll find their own version of our religion and, looking at our wounds, won’t want anything to do with our boxes anymore.

I don’t want to be with people who fit in a box. I want to be on the outside, picking up the broken pieces that fell off. I want to help the wounded heal. I want to live outside of religion, in relationship with people. I want to ask questions and be confused together, maybe wandering in circles or meandering long paths, but moving. Going toward the God of unending love with anyone who wants to go toward Him. Not stagnant in a box but always working toward growth, understanding and a sense of peace when the answers don’t come. Because the result is reconciliation, not right information. I want to show my brokenness to give others permission to do the same so we can heal together, free from shame. That’s how I’ll give them my heart and my life. because I don’t fit the box, either. The box of ministry, the box of pastoring, the box of so many things.

There’s room for you, too. If you’ve been called to people, there are so many out there who don’t know the real God, who’ve only experienced church in a box, who are realizing they don't fit anymore. Step outside and stretch. Find yourself again. There’s freedom out here.