It's hot. I don't know how hot it is (because it's really all quite relative), but it's uncomfortable. We have all the windows open at the office, but there's no breeze. It's just hot and humid. Considering it's September 1, we already set a record high temperature for the month (I'm not exactly sure how that works, but that's what they said).
Some windows in our office have screens, but most of them don't. We get dragonflies to visit our office. These dragonflies are the size of my hand. They're big and nasty. Sometimes when I'm driving around, I'll just drive into a whole swarm of them and it's way nasty. Anyhow, they're big bugs. They come in through the open windows and then fly around and eventually get stuck on one of the screened windows on their attempt to get out of the hot and boring office. They flap their giant wings and make ridiculous noises as they bounce back and forth between the blinds and the screen. The other day we had five dragonflies stuck on one screen--it set a new office record.
After a while, the dragonflies will calm down and just sit on the screen. Occasionally one of them will try to bash its way out, but eventually, it too will just sit and rest on the screen. And it's when they've all stopped acting ridiculous that my brave coworkers will gently pick them up by the wings and fling them out the open window, back outside into nature where they belong and have been trying to get for the last two hours.
I've watched this phenomenon for days--crazy big dragonflies desperately pushing against the seemingly invisible screen to get outside where they belong. And then once they stop and rest, someone bigger (a.k.a. super brave coworker) will gently pick them up and fling them outside where the poor dragonfly was desperate to get to all along.
Sometimes I think that's how it is with God...at least for me. How I desperately longed to be in Japan. And I tried so hard on my own to get here. Over and over again, I smashed into a giant screen. And I could see it--I could see Japan...but I just couldn't get there. And then I rested. Part of it exhaustion, the other part frustration. But I rested. And it was then that God could pick me up and fling me to Japan, to my heart's desire. Only when I rested and was still did I let Him have the opportunity to help me get to where I wanted to be.
But maybe, we sit there and look out the window and see joy and peace and all the things we think could never be ours. And we're trapped between the screen and the blinds, and we're kind of resolved to just stay there til we die. That being outside, having joy and peace and freedom, are for the other dragonflies, not us. Because now I'm just stuck and I can't get out and I'm just going to die here. And I've been there. It's easy to get stuck there. We tried to get out there on our own and just repeatedly hit that screen, that depression, that wall you can't jump over. I think Satan wants to keep us there--looking at all the other dragonflies but reminding us over and over again that we're stuck between the screen and the blinds.
Until we rest and be still, God can't throw us out the window into the place we so long desire to be, whether that's Japan or a joyful and peaceful state of heart. And in our attempts to fly out through the screen, we get so frustrated and tired, and some of us die there trapped between the blinds and the screen without ever really experiencing what we've always longed for...freedom.
I will be the first to admit that I lived most of my life stuck between the screen and the blinds. And I was bitter. I so desperately longed to enjoy life as I watched everyone else around me...and I couldn't. I couldn't get out there because I got trapped and I blamed God. It wasn't until I realized I couldn't get out there on my own that God reached down and threw me out the window (in the best possible way you could throw someone out a window). And over and over and over again, I have been reminded that I am (and you are) to live a life of freedom. That Christ died so that I wouldn't have to be trapped in my sin, in my flesh, in my past, in my addictions.
"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1
"For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." Galatians 5:13
"Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God." 1 Peter 2:16
Will we be still long enough for God to throw us out the window? Will we take the time to realize that we can't get there on our own? Will we understand that our past isn't fixable but forgiven, and we can live a life of freedom in Christ? Will we remember that we were meant to live a life of freedom in Christ because of Christ and for Christ?
No comments:
Post a Comment