We live in an age that is very afraid of messing up, of saying the wrong thing, of crossing an unseen line. We want a checklist of all the right things to do and all the wrong things to avoid; show me the lines, and I'll color inside them. Give me the study guide, and I'll ace the test.

But the scriptures teach us again and again that what God desires is not meticulous keeping of the law but rather loving trust and humble reliance. We want to be robots, independently carrying out his will so that he will leave us alone, but he made us to be trees, dependent upon him for our life and breath but capable of producing glorious fruit. We try to be slaves when he made us to be sons.

Why? Because we are profoundly uncomfortable with the shocking amount of freedom that we have as sons of God. We want to be told what to do, when instead God invites us to be, and then lets us do as we please.

In Galatians 5 Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit, and he does not do so in order to make us work harder, but rather so that we will desire to be good trees. A tree does not work really hard in order to produce fruit. It just submits to being a tree, stops trying to be a rhinoceros, and then tries to be a good tree. Drinking up water, sending down roots, soaking up sunshine and so on.

Any parent or teacher knows this. You look at your kids or students and you think, "i just want your heart, and then who cares what you do? Maybe there's some adjusting here, some loving correction there, but if you are inclined to me, if you trust and submit to me in love, if you have affection for me, that's really the whole enchilada."

What we see in the scriptures is that this is the attitude God has towards us. What matters more than anything else is the orientation of our hearts. Where is our affection? Are we focused on not messing up so that God will leave us alone, or do we long to be pleasing to our Father?