I've heard the Christian myths. They start in Sunday School.

1) Christians fold their hands and close their eyes to pray. It keeps us from distractions.
2) Christians don’t run in church because this is God’s House.
3) Christians love everyone, “But don’t worry,” I was told. “You don’t have to like everybody.”
4) Christians go to church on Sunday.
5) Christians are always happy.
6) Christians don’t get angry, and they never hate, “Unless it’s the devil. You’re supposed to hate him.”
7) Christians don’t do drugs or smoke or drink. And most really good Christians don’t bowl or dance or listen to rock ‘n’ roll music either (though that’s mostly OK with God nowadays).

I started learning young, and every year, I’ve added one or two or five or ten. Until — just recently — I found a truth that didn’t fit the rest.

God created me, and He made me in His image.

The very character of Christ, therefore, is buried in the rubble of my busy, broken life. Tinged with sin and covered in the shadow of selfishness — at the center of my being — is God’s reality, the person I am meant to be.

Transformation, then, is not to something rigid and correct as myth or rule would have it. God does not give us Sunday straitjackets to limit life and force a church-day smile. Instead, He leads me into peaceful, carefree joy, more deeply myself than I have ever been. He makes me what I am designed to be, separate from the world of jump-on-the-bandwagon activity. He sets me apart in a church that too often defines itself according to the myth of comfortable conformity.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

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