Stuck.

I wonder if Abraham had this problem.

I wonder how long it took him to go when God called him to go.  I’m sure he had his doubts, hesitations and fears, but once those were resolved, I wonder if there was anything left he had to take care of before he could go.

A tent to sell? Contract commitments to honor? Debt to be paid off?

Probably not. He seemed too wise for that.

But it makes me wonder how often we become our own barriers to the freedom of following Christ.

I’ll just admit it. I’ve spent that last few decades totally worshiping at the altar of Western consumerism. I’ve quietly and unconsciously believed that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness meant having the freedom to purchase at will. Anything and everything. Houses, cars, dinners, clothes, et al. And over time, I have unwittingly allowed myself to become lashed to my possessions, circumstances and commitments. And I only realized that I was bound and gagged by these things when God eventually came calling - asking me to follow him and I couldn’t. I was stuck.

I wonder if God gets frustrated when we eventually kick and scream to him about this stuff, constantly asking him to rescue us from situations of our own making. No matter how much our hearts are committed to following God at all costs, our obedience is oftentimes compromised by ourselves.

Mother Theresa made a couple promises to God back in the day. One of them was that no matter what the request, if God called her to do something, the answer was “yes.” 

"Yes, Lord." 

You don’t even have to finish the question, the answer is “yes.”

The other covenant was that she would obey immediately. There would be no time of weighing options, or doing a SWOT analysis. She would commit to move and move immediately.

And that’s where my heart wants to be, but in reality, I’ve locked the only door out to the open road and thrown away the key.

Maybe that’s what Jesus wanted for us when he told us to travel lightly.

I now know, firsthand, the truth about possessions. See, we can buy that house, assign our time to a corporation, over-commit and overextend…but if we really think there’s freedom in all of that stuff, we are so wrong.

Freedom has nothing to do with being able to do anything you want. It’s being able to do anything God wants.

True freedom is being able to go right when God tells you to go.

True freedom is being able to respond immediately to his call.

It’s not having so much complexity and obligation in your life, that you have to tend to 72 other things before you can respond to God’s voice.

You can be a slave to your situation. Oppressed by obligation. But Jesus said that he came to release the prisoners and free the oppressed…so I know there’s hope. I know that God can and will break these chains and allow us to follow him. I just don’t know when.

And waiting is the hardest part. The days are always long in prison.

We can be so careless with our decisions. This is why we’ve got to give Jesus authority over every nook and cranny of our lives. Every moment, every decision. We need to be sensitive and allow the Spirit to guide us, even when the issue seems inconsequential at the time. Even when it’s seemingly irrelevant.

And it's in this moment, when Paul's words crash hard into me...

"You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat." 

Yes, I did. And now I’m stuck in a cage of my own design, wanting nothing more than to break out and respond to God’s call. But instead, I’m spinning in the middle of the biggest (and hardest) lesson God has ever taught me.

I pray that at least there can be a lesson for someone else in this.

Travel light. Simplify.  Be free.

Comments

[Jacob Lorenz]

Keep pushing through, unraveling what's keeping you from doing what you are called to do... and remember that God has a purpose in this delay.

My pastor, Jim Ladd, recently completed a series based on the life of Joseph... the series encouraged me greatly. It would be some good ipod material for those bike rides into work...

http://feeds.feedburner.com/gccteachingaudio/

Check out the 8/30/08 sermon...