Escape From Prison

Hello everyone, It has been far, far too long since we posted here. Things would get confusing (or at least long) if I tried to explain everything that Sarah and I have experienced in the last year. However, I would like to share one common thread.

Last summer (summer 2011) and fall, with the help of some faithful friends and the conviction of God's Spirit, I began to see more clearly some underlying issues in my soul that were causing a variety of problems. The problems could be summed up like this: I had for awhile been experiencing unwanted and anxious thoughts regularly about relationships, responsibilities, and even salvation. As a result, I found myself lacking peace and joy in my daily life. Sometimes, the thoughts felt like a prison, and I couldn't see a way to break out. God's passageway to break out was so counterintuitive. The escape route was a command from Scripture.

By the grace of God, I began to recognize that it was the idolatry of my heart that was causing the anxiety. In other words, I was giving God-like value to things that weren't God. I recognized my two primary idols as: 1. Approval from other people and 2. Control over my life.

So- and stick with me here (as I often say to my high school students)- in trying to win the approval of others and in trying to grip my life fiercely in order to exert control over it, I was imprisoning myself. Let's face it, if you try and have complete control over your life, you are trying to do God's job. Now those are some big shoes to fill! God's role of sovereign responsibility and care is more than enough to cause any human a lifetime of anxiety, should they attempt to take it on. My pastor often reminds us of this truth: Anxiety is stepping into God's role and quickly realizing that we don't have God's resources.

So that's what I was doing, essentially. I thought things like: "My marriage needs to be successful so that others will respect me", "I need to make absolutely sure that I have crossed off every checklist item in the Christian faith to be sure that I am in fact a Christian," and "I need to make sure that nothing goes wrong in this relationship." Again, in trying to do the impossible, I was setting a prison up for myself to dwell in. But God had a special passageway for me out of the prison and it was somewhat counterintuitive. Sometime in the fall (I don't remember the exact day) I read this in Luke, Chapter 4:

"It is written,'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'"

This is Jesus quoting Scripture to Satan in the wilderness - wow. In reading this, I realized that this passage could be a powerful weapon for me to us in the fight against idolatry, which was (and still is many times) the source of my anxiety.

How does this weapon work? In the bible, God commands his people to worship only Him, and no one/thing else. This straightforward command that Jesus quotes in Luke was so simple, yet so powerful for me. In this verse, I learn that I must worship God alone, not my own power, nor my image. When I remind myself of this verse, God reminds me that he is God and that I should consider Him to have ultimate worth. When I turn from my idolatry in those times and truly believe that God is God, I am not anxious, because I am entrusting myself to the only person who can take care of the whole world, including all the needs of my life. I experience so much more peace in my heart, though my heart is, of course, not perfect.

So a command to submit to the ultimate Authority is what broke me out of prison. This is why I say it is counterintuitive. The way to experience true freedom is to submit to the truth.

Thanks be to the only true God- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father sent the Son to live, die and resurrect by the Spirit in order to make a true way for us to know God. By personally trusting that Jesus lived perfectly submitted to the only God, that he paid the penalty for all of the false gods that we have, and that he was raised from the dead, we are rescued out of all of our worship prisons to experience forgiveness and freedom with God forever.

Jesus, while on Earth, told us: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."