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There is this idea inside of toxic Christianity that to make a decision you need approval from a being up in heaven that they call God; you need confirmation, a sign from the sky. And since nobody really gets that, the next best thing is approval from authority figures.
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If you mix that with the misuse of honor father and mother, and submit to all authorities, then you have a lot of people who don’t feel empowered to make decisions and live their lives without permission.
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If divinity is within us then really the only permission we need is our own, to ensure we are not betraying our true self w/the decisions we are making. No, that doesn’t mean we can harm others, harming others is always a betrayal of the true self.
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What it means is that we can get in touch w/ourselves, that we can say no simply because we don’t want to, that we can inform ppl of what our plans are, we don’t need to wait for anybody to tell us if it’s ok, we can try things because we want to try them,
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we can change jobs, move cities, take trips, have another drink… we can live our lives, we can expand, we can take space. We don’t need anybody’s ok.
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I actually love the story of Jesus staying behind in Jerusalem after the Passover. Not sure if it happened or not, it only appears in the gospel of Luke. Regardless it’s a cool story.
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He was 12, and when his parents come back and tell him why he did that, he doesn’t apologize, he doesn’t say he should have gotten permission, he doesn’t feel regret or remorse; he tells them he’d of course be at his Father’s house.
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Which is to say he was where he was supposed to be. And throughout the gospels time and time again, he does whatever it is that he wants, never imposing his will on others, just being faithful to himself.
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We’ve all been indoctrinated into believing we need permission from others or an external force, the truth is permission was granted the moment we were created with a free will and in the image of divinity. The goal is not to betray ourselves but we already have permission.
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