The Trainer Wheels of Religion

As a mother of 3 beautiful children, I have had the honour and joy over the past few years of watching all three of them learn to ride a bike. Each child's experience has been unique, however, what I learned from our last child's experience was the most significant of all.

Trainer wheels are a disadvantage. 

Yup, that's what I just said. From my experience, trainer wheels were a waste of time and in fact they hindered our girls from learning to balance on their own. The bridge between riding with trainer wheels and learning to ride without them is basically the same as learning to ride a bike from scratch,




You see, we bought our third child a balance bike. Genius inventions. They are genius because they allow a child to learn balance without having to focus on pedaling. It took our son 10 minutes to learn to ride a pedal bike after riding his balance bike. It took our daughters a few weeks to get the hang of riding without trainer wheels and they were far more freaked out as well.

Now you may be asking me, what does this have to do with religion? Well, basically everything. You see, religion is just like the trainer wheels of a bike.

Religion takes away our ability to find balance from within, and dictates to us what is right and wrong. Religion allows us to live 'uprightly' with external supports rather than living balanced from within.

Religion will never replace a relationship with Love Himself - Jesus Christ. He is my inner guide to living balanced. In my opinion, living religiously hinders our ability to hear God and walk with Him personally. When Jesus walked the earth, he frequently offended the religious people, and in my experience with Jesus, He has frequently offended the religious mindset in me and challenged my views of right and wrong by speaking directly to my heart.

Although I grew up in a beautiful Christian home with loving parents, I still grew up using the trainer wheels of religion. Judging what is right and wrong based on what I was told. On my journey of walking out my faith in relationship with Jesus, I have had to unlearn relying on what religion dictates to me, and relearn the art of staying connected with Christ in my heart.

My prayer is that we will all awaken to freedom in Jesus and throw off the trainer wheels. Yes, we may fall and graze our knees. Yes we may lean too far to the left or right, but that is how we were designed to learn. The pure joy of riding balanced with the wind in our hair is the same joy we can experience riding freely with Christ at the center.

Go on. Trust yourself. Trust the Christ in You. Trust this walk of faith.
I believe in You.
Love Raneeta