Following too Closely

One of the cardinal sins of driving is to follow another vehicle too closely. It doesn't really matter who is in the other car honestly. Suppose you are following a friend to their house, you would want to follow, but for safety, you would still want to leave some distance between your car and their car. That way if something happened you would have a better chance of avoiding an accident. Another advantage of leaving space is that it allows you a more full view of the entire environment. You can follow your leader but still take in the surrounding view. The closer you drive the more you have to focus on the car in front and the more narrow your field of view will become.

I think this can work very much the same in religion. It's great for people to follow a belief system but when we follow too closely, I'm afraid we tend to lose perspective of the world around us. Jesus accused the religious leaders of his day of doing this when they created all kinds of silly additional rules for people to follow.  My pastor shared with me this week that he heard of a church where the congregants would play marbles in the isles because Jesus taught we are to be like children!

I think the fastest route to radicalism at worst and legalism at best is to follow your belief system so closely that you lose touch with the world around you. I think a test for this is to ask how certain one is that the people around them are going to hell. The more certain, the more likely someone has probably lost touch with the rest of humanity. If we aren't careful we will latch on to a smaller portion of the belief system than what is available simply because we are following so closely that our view is narrowed.

So with that I say, I want to follow Christ, I want to study the Bible and learn from its teachings, how to love and how to live. I will follow.............just not too closely.