One year while I was in college, I carried a Bible with me everywhere I went.

I found that I had several 10 to 15 minute gaps in my day, and thought I could fill the time well by using it to read the Bible. I got the idea partially from my roommate Chris, who I noticed had a Bible with him just about everywhere he went.

My idea worked well. I got to spend a good bit more time reading my Bible than I had been previously. It was a good use of time and overall, a good discipline.

One day Chris and I were talking about it and he made the comment, “You know, you have to be careful when you carry a Bible with you everywhere you go. After a while, you might find that you start to think you’re better than everyone who doesn’t do the same.” It was an interesting perspective, but I didn’t really understand it at the time.

I continued on carrying my Bible everywhere…but after a few more months of it, I noticed that my habit of reading the Bible in my free time had turned into two other habits:

1) NOT reading the Bible in my free time (but continuing to carry it).
2) Thinking to myself that in some spiritual way, I was better than others who didn’t carry their Bible 24/7.

I was able to identify this before it got too out of hand, so I quickly solved the problem: I quit carrying my Bible everywhere.

But in hindsight, I’m not sure that was the best solution. Or at least ALL of the best solution. Because I was still neglecting the habit of reading my Bible.

So, to summarize, here’s what happened: I identified myself becoming a legalist, defining my spirituality by a set of rules and actions that I performed. My knee-jerk reaction was to stop doing whatever action it was that made me a legalist, and continue on my way. But here’s the problem with addressing legalism that way: all it does is turn legalism into laziness.

You can argue all day about which is better, to be a legalist or lazy. But I think we can agree that neither of them are the goal that we should be striving for as a Christian. So then, what should we strive for? Well, there’s no mandate or example in the Bible I’ve found where it is expressed that God enjoys guiding the lazy through their lives to do great things in His name (Of course, I’m not a Bible scholar, so I’m not asserting that it doesn’t exist…simply that I’ve never read it).

But as Christians in the Bible belt, doesn’t it seem like that’s the predominant lifestyle theme? We simply sail through life, reacting to whatever comes our way, and expecting that God will one day drop some great destiny on us because we think He should. Instead of the Purpose-Driven Life…what we end up living out is more like the Purpose-Entitled Life.

In fact, Psalm 1 says of the “blessed” man:

[H]is delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.

He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.

So here’s the crux of the issue that I came face to face with yesterday:

The cure for legalism isn’t laziness. It’s authenticity.