Unsinning with Cigars

I grew up in a godly household where my parents weren't overbearing with Christianity, even though my dad is a pastor and in my teenage years I claimed a relationship with Christ for myself. However, somewhere, somehow, I picked up that if I could please God with my behavior it made him love me more. It must have been when I memorized Leviticus word for word. Which is just great because anytime I see someone who isn't as righteous as me getting blessed or I don't get my way, I get a little angry at God.

I hate being this way.

I'm such a legalist and would often find myself boasting in myself about what I had never done. For instance, I never had tasted alcohol. Well correction, I tried one sip of Wild Turkey in 8th grade and never had another sip of alcohol until this year! I'm such a legalist that on my honeymoon where drinks were free and plentiful, I made my new bride check it first for alcohol because I was a seminary student and had signed an Ethos statement saying I wouldn't drink the devil's drink. Seriously, how sad is that? But how awesome is my lady to be my cup bearer?

So with that I'm confessing: I'm a recovering legalist.

I'm going to warn you if you are a legalist, you might not like this too much. In fact, I might even disappoint you a little. A few years ago it would have infuriated me. But that's okay, because with being a recovering legalist comes the responsibility of doing things that before I would have snubbed my nose at and thought people to be less holy than me. Things that I found I could boast and be prideful in myself, instead of boasting in Jesus and the amount of love I have for others.

So with that you get to enjoy a story from a recovering legalist.

My favorite thing to do to fight off my legalism (besides praying of course) is to smoke a cigar from time to time.

My first true experience was nothing short of epic.

I was visiting a close friend in Pennsylvania. He took me to a cigar smoke shop. You know one of those classy joints with leather couches and big flat LCD TVs paid for by expensive cigars. He chose three, so I chose three. His wife told him to take it easy on me before we left. I'm much more manly than he is, so I knew I had this.

We sat around a table talking about all the church's problems and methodology centering around the ancient oratory art of sermon giving. He smoked a cigar. I smoked half a cigar and I liked it...a lot. He lit another cigar. So even though I was only half finished, I lit another cigar. I smoked a fourth of that cigar and my friend started his third one. He made it look easy and artful. Me...well, not so much.

In the middle of our discussion, all the sudden I felt the room start spinning.

"I think I'm going to be sick."

He asked, "You need a break?"

"No, I need to go outside."

I stumbled out of the room leaving my dignity behind and made it to the grass next to the building before I threw up my lunch. My ego took a big hit there, but that's good for a recovering legalist.

My friend had made it out just in time to see me spew.

We sat by a bench (actually, I laid out on a bench) with him mocking me by still puffing on his third cigar. Even doing something manly like smoking cigars ends with me doing something girly like sun bathing. I felt much better, but then the nausea hit me again. I got up and gave the cigar shop some modern art on their lawn and this time, I really lost my lunch. The entire time, my friend is laughing at me like a good friend should in that moment. But I'm laughing back at him giving him thumbs up. It's the only time I ever remember laughing while I threw up, but I knew I was in the midst of something special.

I returned to the bench when all the sudden my belly started rumbling. My friend let me know that it can cause a disturbance down in the south of your body as well, if you know what I'm saying. So I'll skip that part for your sake.

It's about this time that I realize that if we don't hurry, I'm going to miss my flight back to my old Kentucky home.  We were in a small commuter town in between Philly and New York City, and the commuter traffic was heavy, so my friend was showing me his best NASCAR skills to speed things up. We were at a stop light turning left with cars surrounding us, when he started talking about my epic hurl. To which I replied, "Like this?" and opened the door and proceed to ralph out the door. God loves me so much that he made sure the light turned green. So here I am, my head out the door and throwing up with rush hour traffic all around. My friend has to start driving at this point and cars are swerving to miss what I just shared with everyone. He asked if I needed to pull over to which I pointed with my thumb to pull off the road, but he thought I was giving him a thumbs up and kept going, which only made turn a darker shade of green.

We made it back to the house and my stomach finally settled. But I learned a something that day as a recovering legalists, not taking yourself so seriously is a good thing.

Why?

Because I'm tired of thinking I'm better than everyone else when I'm not.

I'm tired of being a self-righteous prick. And do you know who Jesus disliked the most in his day? The self-righteous pricks called the Pharisees.They loved to snub their noses at others and even Jesus for being less holy.

I'm tired of feeling like I can earn God's love and manipulate him into doing what I want him to do by keeping a checklist.

I'm tired of losing myself because of myself.

Big huge disclaimer here: I'm not suggesting that anyone do as I'm doing and I definitely will not knowingly do something that is contrary to God's word. I struggled with this post, just because I don't want you to think you have a licenses to sin, because that definitely isn't the case. Nor do I think smoking cigars is a sin if you 18 and are out on your own. But this helps me to know where my righteousness comes from and it's not from my works, but the grace found in Jesus.

Question:
Are there any recovering legalist out there?