21 Oct imaginary chains of bondage
There is a story about an elephant. A baby elephant that is tied around it’s leg to a stake. A curious, baby elephant that tugs and pulls at the stake in the ground, only to be confronted with pain at the cord cutting into the skin as she pulls at the stake.
Fast forward years later to when that baby is a grown 13,000 lb mama elephant. The owner needs only a mere rope and wooden stake to keep the mother from wandering. She has been diligently trained to stay within the reach of the chain which kept her tethered all of those years and is completely unaware of the minimal effort it would take for her to remove the wooden stake from the ground or tear the rope finding freedom. She is blind to her mighty strength that would easily set her free to wander.
I’ve hear this story many times, but only today did it become exceedingly clear.
The truth is…I have been avoiding you. I know; it’s really not nice. Writing has been difficult lately due to the inner turmoil I have been wrestling with. Said turmoil has not been enough for me to actually do anything about, just enough to make me watch more tv than normal and get lost far too often in social media. [Mind numbing, people. These are drugs of the 21st century.]
Today I had a conversation though, with a friend who is nothing if not honest and Jesus-adoring. Unbeknownst to her–and myself–we stumbled upon a conversation that revealed the core reason I have been hiding from you and the black and white type I enjoy making appear and dance across my screen.
I have been lying.
And I can’t write from my truest place, the core of who I am, the part of me from which I write that touches all the way down in my tippy toes is I am not being completely, 1,000% genuine. I did not intend to lie to you. In fact, I was completely oblivious to my doing so.
You see, I have been raging for the past 8 months or so about this incredible grace of Jesus that I think I am finally beginning to wrap my brain around. {{pause…it is incomprehensible…but trying to grasp the core truth of such grace is essential to freedom living.}} I mean…I wrote a freaking 10-steps to freedom post, which I consider both mildly arrogant and completely brilliant. (Just sayin’.)
But for the past two weeks something has been tugging, nagging, pulling at my spirit like that annoying fly that has discovered the scent of watermelon on the fourth of July and just won’t leave you alone. Yes. Just like that.
I did not want to confront that fly. I just wanted it to go away. But it didn’t. As I am sure you beautiful, brilliant people already guessed, it only grew in size and hunger for my watermelon.
Today though, thanks to a not so random trip to the Dekalb Farmer’s Market with my sweet friend, I finally admitted it, the truth that I did not even know I was holding inside…
I have been carrying around the fear, this disgusting, soul-eating, lie-founded fear. I have been living from the belief that God–the great, loving, amazing, protective, adoring, scary strong, creative, saving Father I talk about–might one day decide that I am not worth His time, or that He would become an addict, or that he would just let pride consume Him and completely abandon me…leaving me truly with nothing at all.
My brain calls bull shit. But that ankle that has been chained down for so long, apparently isn’t quite so convinced yet. And that’s okay. That ankle has deep wounds and scars from trying to break free.
……..
The hardest part about living in freedom sometimes…is re-learning how to live in freedom. We were born free. God created us this way. Free to live life with Him, nestled within His gracious kingdom even here on Earth.
And sometimes chains get clamped onto our ankles whether its by false doctrine (::ahem:: legalism), a prideful father, the loss of a child, an ass hole of a husband, the death of a mother, sickness of a sibling, addiction, depression, suicide, cancer, bitterness, lies, or just the overwhelming evil of the world that can sometimes be too much to believe in the kind of unconditional grace God advertises.
When we live our lives from this place grounded in lies, we become accustomed to certain rituals, thoughts, and behaviors that do not align with living with Christ. It could be external behaviors or it could solely be within the hidden landscape of our minds where hephalumps and woozles turn evil, play mind games, twist truth, and wreak havoc on the terrain of your soul, leaving you spiritually crippled, if even “fine” externally.
On the way home I listened to “Amazing Grace” on repeat. A song I have sung a thousand times or more, tonight was with a little more sweetness.
“I once was lost but now I’m find
Was blind but now I see
My chains are gone, I’ve been set free…”
Free!
Yes, free, but I have no idea what to do with said freedom.
I have, on a very deep, subconscious level, still been believing lies. I am the domesticated stallion unexpectedly dropped back into the beautiful mountainside of freedom.
Boy, it is beautiful…and also ridiculously terrifying.
What do you do with freedom? In freedom? True, incomprehensible, beautiful freedom!!?
((An answer for a different day. Today…you just say thank you.))
I said that the first step is to identify fears. Well…sometimes those fears live so deep within you, they are so entrenched into your skin, that it takes time for them to surface. And that’s okay. Supposedly this is called healing. It’s a journey, people. (When that starts to comfort you, let me know!)
But…the best news?
God’s grace is big enough even for when we live our lives out of lies that we are unaware we are believing.
“Grace, on the other hand, means that God is pursuing you. That God forgives you. That God sanctifies you. When you are apathetic toward God, He is never apathetic toward you. When you don’t desire to pray and talk to God, He never grows tired of talking to you. When you forget to read your Bible and listen to God, He is always listening to you. Grace means that your spirituality is upheld by God’s stubborn enjoyment of you.”
{Preston Sprinkle, Charis: God’s Scandalous Grace for Us}
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