Honest Christian Conversations
A weekly podcast dealing with cultural and spiritual issues within the Christian faith.
Want to be a guest on Honest Christian Conversations? Send Ana Murby a message on PodMatch, here: https://podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/honestchristianconversations
Honest Christian Conversations
Finding Peace Beyond Religious Legalism
Have you ever felt trapped by the relentless demands of religious expectations? Discover how Desiree Taylor broke free from the chains of legalism and found true peace in Christ. In this transformative episode, Desiree shares her heartfelt journey chronicled in her new book, "Created to Relate: Living Beyond Religion." Through poignant stories of overcoming low self-esteem, people-pleasing, and the crippling fear of not being saved, Desiree reveals the profound impact of seeing God as a loving father rather than a judgmental figure. Her candid insights about embracing forgiveness and maintaining newfound freedom offer a roadmap for anyone yearning for a deeper, more authentic relationship with Jesus.
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Desiree Taylor has such a heart for discipleship and seeing people freed from the bondage of religion. Through her new book, which details her own escape from the prison of legalism, she shares nuggets of wisdom and her heart's passion to see people free to love Jesus in a healthy relationship. Today's episode will be uncomfortable for some, but it's also going to be freeing for all those willing to have an open heart in mind. Be sure to share this episode with family and friends so they too can be blessed by the contents of this episode. Hi, desiree, thank you so much for coming on the episode today. I'm very excited to talk to you about today's topic.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here with you.
Speaker 1:Why don't you tell us the name of your book and what it's about?
Speaker 2:Okay, the name of my first and newest book is Created to Relete Living Beyond Religion, and it talks about that transition from a life of religion to a relationship with Jesus, sharing a lot of my personal stories, but also help on how to move forward in your own experiences too.
Speaker 1:Yes, I loved your book. I had a hard time putting it down, although with four kids at home I had no choice.
Speaker 1:But listening to your story and the page was like my story. I have been through a legalistic family legalistic mindset that I'm currently trying to break through as well, so I was very happy to see that you were talking about this. This is a subject that needs to be talked about. Nobody's talking about it, either because they're stuck in it and they don't see it, or maybe they're just afraid. So I am glad that you were not afraid to talk about this subject.
Speaker 2:So tell us more? What can we find in this book? What topics do you cover? Well, I started from the beginning and kind of shared my testimony and how I became a believer in Jesus and then I just, yeah, just kind of went through the beginning of that but also my process in shifting from the things that I had been taught along the way, and it wasn't just in one place, it was at church and at home for me. And you don't really realize that you're in this stuff until later on.
Speaker 2:I really broke through a lot of this stuff as I was writing the book, not even before, because as I started writing this I didn't actually think it was going to be more about other people's stories. I did not. I did not really know the direction that God was going to take this in, and it became way more personal and a lot deeper than I thought. But it kind of takes you through the different struggles that I had with just seeing myself and seeing God for who he was, you kind of. As you move through that you know and how that affects studying his word and prayer and how we look at church and because so many people take their experiences from church and they walk away from God. That really hurts my heart because it's not God that's done these things to us, it's other people and in our humanness, these are the places that we go so to separate that. That's been hard to separate and I really realized how my physical relationships with different people in my life affected my relationship with God.
Speaker 2:I always thought I kept it separate and as I'm writing this book, I'm like, wow, I did not keep that separate at all, just even as we become free in Christ. We have freedom because Jesus died for us, but so many people don't live free. That's really what motivates my heart is it's been an awful journey in this and it's been a painful and it's just. There's so many consequences to all of this stuff, and that's made me really angry is how writing this has helped me work through my anger and um forgive the people that I need to forgive, but also to help other people come to freedom, much sooner than I was able to, and how to keep that like.
Speaker 2:We have to fight for this. We freedom in christ isn't just we get free and it's a wonderful thing, but we have to really fight for that and to be intentional about staying in that place, and so that's the other thing. You want to leave people with the ability to do that too. Like it's not, I find sometimes, when you know we do the altar calls and it's a simple prayer and we're saved, and my heart's always about mentorship and discipleship anyway, because I never had anyone walking with me. So I feel like in real life you know I do a lot of that in ministry at church, but this book will be something that people can take alongside them and keep with them and help remind them of the things that we need to do to stay in that life of freedom in Christ.
Speaker 1:Beautifully said and having read the whole book, I completely agree. I felt your heart in every page. I saw your passion for sharing the true Jesus in every page and now that you mentioned that you're wanting it to be like a discipleship companion, I can see that it's like having a mini you with everybody who has the book and you're telling them the truth and saying hold on, let's take a step back. This might be a little legalistic. Here's the right approach to have. I like how you did that. You compared and contrasted the difference and, having been through that myself, I saw that where you were. Oh yeah, I totally was doing the same thing, saying the same thing, and now I'm out of it and I'm realizing how hard it is to get out of it. It is like you said it's a struggle, it's something you have to fight for, to have that freedom, because it is so easy to get back into the comfortable and what you've been doing all along. But to stay out of it and stay free is where we want to be, because that's where true peace is found.
Speaker 1:So I am very glad that you wrote this book. I mean, it's not like it's a big novel or anything. It's not huge. It is perfectly compact to take and leave in your purse, leave in your backpack wherever you are and just read a little bit at lunch or whatever. It's perfect companion size. And the title is absolutely brilliant too Created to Relate that the subject matter is very relatable. I think there's a lot of people out there who, after reading this, will realize they've also had a religious, legalistic mindset that they didn't even know about. And now they'll have something to help them get out of it. So thank you so much for writing this book. It definitely mentored to my heart who is still trying to fight the urge to go back to the legalistic. So I appreciate the book so much and I'm pretty sure everyone else will as well once they get a hold of it and that's so encouraging to me.
Speaker 2:It's so great to hear that too, because this book took me like eight to 10 years to write. It's been a really hard journey, through a lot of hard things, and the enemy's been very good at trying to get me to give up on that, and I'm so grateful to see some of the fruit and to see that the vision that God gave is, you know, and the message that God gave is going to go out as he wanted that, so that makes me very happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've already inspired me with certain parts of it to try to read my Bible different, to remember to pray and ask Him to help me understand what he's trying to tell me. Not make it all about me, but what can I learn about you from the Bible? Because it's his love letter to us, which I loved that chapter. It was not overly mushy. If someone reads that they're going to be like, oh no, love whatever. But that's not what it was and I love that chapter very much, and everything in your whole book was something I could easily relate to. So, yeah, I'm excited to see how many people's lives are going to be transformed through this book. I wanted to discuss chapter four. There was a part where you talked about memorization. I liked that a lot because that was a hang up for me.
Speaker 1:I went to a Christian school in high school and they had Bible class and you had to memorize a new scripture every Friday. That was not my thing, or at least that's what I told myself is I couldn't memorize scripture. So what I would do is I'd have the verse we were supposed to do inside a book and I'd be looking at it before it was my turn, so I could go outside and memorize with quotation marks the book, and I never really had memorization for the Bible. I had a few things that I learned through my life, the traditional things that they might teach you, but I never really desired to memorize the scripture because I wanted to have it hidden in my heart the way that we're supposed to, because it's God's love letter to us. It's his word, living word.
Speaker 1:I didn't think of it that way. I thought of it in the legalistic mindset that the more you have, the more people will know that you read your Bible. They'll know that you are smart in the Bible, that you are a really good Christian. And I could never memorize. And if I did, I always felt like I didn't know enough. And that's what. As I was reading those paragraphs about it, I was like yes, yes, she's talking about it. Yes, I loved it. You and I have the same story. It's crazy. I never thought I'd meet somebody who would share the same things that I felt I was going through. I love your story.
Speaker 2:Well, and I love that because that one chapter I knew was going to be challenging talking about with people, because it's almost offensive when I talk about that the memorizing scripture. And I tried to put it in a respectful way in the sense that not everyone has that battle, not everyone has this struggle. Memorizing scripture isn't necessarily wrong, but it is wrong when you put that in a box and your identity is based on whether you can memorize this or not. And as a mother too, because my kids I was a younger mom, because my older son is part of my testimony, so I was 19 when I had him and I was 25 when I had my other son, and so they grew up while I was trying to figure this out, so they were still in a lot of that along the way and it was the same thing with them. I was identified as what kind of mother I was.
Speaker 2:If my children could memorize well, and it made me so angry. How dare you put that on me and we do that to people? That's what makes me angry, I think, is we put identity markers on people. You have to be this, do this, in order to be something or someone, and that's not what God says and I think it was too much of an emphasis and I really wanted to bring that out and I did, and so we'll see where the conversations go on that. But it really blesses my heart to hear that you not that you experienced it, but just that you can relate to it, because sometimes I feel like I'm the only one and the conversations that I have with people sometimes it's you know, it seems like an odd thing. Everyone's all about the scripture memorization, which is fine, it's just. Yeah, it becomes a little bit too much, I think. Yeah, in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it can become just a thing.
Speaker 1:You check off the box, which is another thing that you mentioned was box checking. I love my to-do list. I'll check things off all the time and I'll feel accomplished, I'll feel relaxed because I remembered something and I put it away. I finished it. But that's not how we should be with God or our walk with him. That's not a relationship, that's a to-do list.
Speaker 1:And I like how you mentioned that it's okay to memorize scripture. But if you're doing it with the wrong motive, then what's the point? Then it's just another thing you're doing. It's like what I did in school didn't honor God. I didn't have the scriptures memorized. I don't even remember half of the ones that I memorized before my test. That's not what he wants. He wants our hearts, he wants all of us, and that includes the sacrifice of. If you do plan on memorizing, do it for the right reasons. Don't just do it because you're worried what your school will think your friends will think. Don't just do it because you're worried what your school will think your friends will think, your church will think. You need to worry about your audience of one, which is another thing. You mentioned dancing with one with God, which also was not for the men who are listening. It was not overly romantic. It was something that would probably make you tear up, especially if you have daughters. It was a beautiful chapter as well, and honestly, I can't get enough of your book.
Speaker 2:I've been excited to talk to you because as soon as I read it, I was like, oh, this is going to be good, yeah, and that's you know, people pleasing the whole other thing, remembering that we're doing it for him and to know him and for him to meet us where we are with the scripture and stuff, and memorizing, getting God's word in our heart, like what you said, that's the most important. And for me to write it out. I would write it out. Writing has just always been a way for me in so many ways to communicate and get my feelings out and to work through things, and it was the same thing with scripture. I would write the scriptures out several times and that's how God got it in my heart more. I couldn't recite it to you even after I wrote it, but it was here because when I needed it it was there.
Speaker 2:And that's how I knew and that's where God really met me and said that's what matters to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell us about your journey out of legalism, just a little bit of how you started coming out of it and coming into getting an actual, real relationship with God.
Speaker 2:I think. Well, and it's been a little bit along the way, but I think one of the first points was when I was just, I was married. I was probably married a couple of years and, with my hearing loss and everything you know, they're just I just felt like I was failing at everything because and with the legalism you know, when you go into marriage, it's all about what you need to do there too, it's not about who you need to be as a wife, it's what you need to do. So I couldn't keep up. I wasn't keeping up. It was just very oppressive for me in the sense of I just felt like a failure all.
Speaker 2:And he said to me that I was trying to earn what he had already given me, and that was really the beginning for me of him pulling me away from those mindsets and those thought processes and all of that and towards him, because it made me want to seek him. Okay, so what does that mean then? You know, and I've always been that kind of person, okay, if you tell me, I want to understand more of that and I wanted to believe it, but it took me a long time to believe that too, that what I did or didn't do didn't matter that much, you know, because I still had those voices around me telling me that it did. So that was a hard part is to lean into God and to keep bringing his word and really getting that in and listening to his voice in the midst of all the other voices. But that was really the beginning for me towards him that way.
Speaker 1:How did you see God while you were in legalism, as opposed to how you see him now?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, while I was in the legalism and even as I was trying to break out of it, I think he it just it seemed like he was one of those dads you know, that was just um, I don't know they would that. He was just looking for me to mess up. I just felt like he was just sitting there waiting and I've gotten that picture of a judge too, with that gavel, and I wrote about that in the book, just just ready to just slam down saying, you know, like your sentence for this, I just felt like there was, he was just waiting for me to mess up, because that was my earthly experience too. So I was very comparative to that.
Speaker 2:Coming out of that, the more that I, the more that he showed me his love. And really, as I learned how he loved me and believed it because that's the thing, a lot of us know it I knew God loved me. You think God loves me. We sing these songs all the time even and I knew it. But I didn't believe it. And that's where I realized the disconnect was for me. But when I really grasped that and believed it, that was a turning point for me too, and seeing him differently, as a father who loved me and who wanted me and wanted a relationship with me, that I was special to him and that just was sweet to me.
Speaker 1:Believing that God loves me is something. If I'm being honest, it's something I'm still working on because I've had low self-esteem my whole life. I grew up very people pleasing. I was the good one in my family. I didn't make any waves, I was quiet, did what I was told. I'd clean my room, I'd take myself to bed, I'd do my homework right after school. I just didn't want to make any waves. I didn't want to upset anybody. I didn't want to upset God. I tried to be the best I could and I know I made mistakes. I also went through some other trauma issues in my life too, but because of that I had really low self-esteem. I did not have a good outlook on who I was. I didn't have any confidence and I wasn't sure how God felt about me.
Speaker 1:I know, during my whole time in legalism I was concerned would I actually go to heaven if I died? That was one of my biggest questions and I was always afraid. After watching the left behind movies from the seventies would still scare me. I would always be afraid what if that happens to me? And I hated that feeling. But I would get a glimpse where I felt, okay, I am saved, but then something would happen and then I'd go back into it. Well, maybe I'm not. What if I'm not? It was just never ending until I was 30 years old when I finally came back to Christ and I realized at that moment that I needed a relationship with Him, that I was actually, for the first time, really coming to know Him. I had asked Him into my heart when I was 12, but I don't really feel I was saved until I was 30, going through my second divorce. So that's when I really feel that I became a believer in Christ and that's when I tell people, if they want to know, when I became a Christian. That's when I tell them, because that's the moment I feel the legalistic chains were broken and I realized if I die today, I will go to heaven.
Speaker 1:It's wonderful that you were able to get out of that place of feeling like God was just a judge waiting for you to screw up, and I think there's so many people out in the world who feel exactly the same about God because of their earthly influences. And, like you, it makes me mad because it's not God's fault. We're humans and we make mistakes. Again, I'm glad that you wrote this book, because I think that is going to help a lot of people who are struggling in this specific area of feeling that God hates them or he's doing something to them. No, you're showing people a different way. No, he loves you. This is what he did for you, not to you. For you. I can't say enough good things about your book.
Speaker 2:I love that, yeah, and I'm really praying for that, because what you just talked about, I mean you and I both have struggled with that, because you're talking about being 40 and you know, and wishing you could have known these things earlier. I mean, I'm turning 50 on Friday and it's really been the last 10 years that I've had real freedom, 10 years that I've had real freedom. I mean, I've been going through and I've gotten closer and he's been breaking it along the way, but the freedom that I have now is just nothing that can be compared to anything along the way. And to really understand that God wants that for everybody.
Speaker 2:And I feel like this book can be used for, you know, people who don't believe, but people who have been hurt by believers, by churches. It really encompasses a lot, I feel like, and I feel like it's done in a way that's personal enough and simple enough that people can understand too. Because for me especially with my hearing, you know, and I've worked with people with special needs I really believe that God wants everyone to understand that his message is simple, and I think that's why that I write the way I do too, is because I want to, I want to be able to connect with a simple minded too and for them to know these things as much as that they can know, and that's just really important, because I really feel like that's God's heart and, honestly, if we don't get there first, it's hard to really walk through the other transit, you know, through God's word and looking at things differently and prayer and all those other things, until we really know who he is and who we are in Him and it is an easy read.
Speaker 1:I think anyone will be able to get a lot of benefit out of it. Obviously I have, but it is a very easy read and I probably will have my 12-year-old reading it too, because I'm trying for others who have teenagers who might be wanting to wander from the faith for the same reasons we did yeah, and I'm thankful for that, because I didn't have that option, you know I mean I did, but I was still walking through all of it and my kids got a lot of it too.
Speaker 2:So to realize too I want to give hope to the ones that even if their kids are older and they're just realizing these things, I am watching how the changes that God makes in my life still affect my children at 25 and 30. They can still see, because there can't be anything else. No one else can change us the way God changes us, not in a way that lasts, and I know that they're seeing that. So I pray that God can still redeem and use those things, even when our kids are older. So I just want to encourage people on that too, amen.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I've really enjoyed talking with you, resonate so much with everything that you're saying and your book is going to change so many hearts. Where can they find your book when it's available?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm sending most people to my website first, which is at wwwarenewedcreationcom. There is a Buy it Now button on there. You can also get it at Amazon, Barnes, Noble Books, A Million Thrift Books and Target. But I love connecting with people, too, on my website, so I really want to see more people go there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm pretty sure you'll have a lot of people coming and talking to you once the book is out Good and bad, hopefully more good than bad, but there will be a mixed bag, I'm sure, All right. Well, thank you so much again, desiree, for coming on today and talking with us about a very important topic that is definitely thriving in the church and hopefully will stop thriving, so that relationships with Jesus will thrive in its place and we can actually see some lasting change in this world.
Speaker 2:Amen. Thanks so much for having me on, so it's a blessing to share it.
