If we were to turn to our own way, He would have died in vain. Yet, he did not, for we must instead turn away from these bondages 
of sin that drag us down.
Tonight I sat in a meeting next to a man that had lost his entire family in the span of 22 months. “I’m the last of my family,” he said somberly.
The words hit me hard. To some people, this would have been enough to make them give up, not the man sitting next to me. He went on to create a successful cleaning company and now stays busier than he wants to be some days.
Many people spend a lifetime seeking, searching, and living in a world they cannot understand. Unable to rise above their environment, they give up and succumb to what weighs them down. If we are to stand for something in our lifetime, we must struggle through the pain and apathy that kill so many dreams.
One by one, we lose those loved ones until one day, we too are no more.
Someone once said that we are nothing but two dates separated by a dash; it is all that remains.
Yet, to me and so many others, the dash in between is where all the living exists. It may be a short, straight line, but if we truly become who God made us to be, the line will be anything but straight and short. To live outside the box of your environmental boundaries, to set break free of the bondages that hold you and keep you from becoming all that God intended you to be, is what living is all about.
“How is that possible,” you ask?
The prophet Isaiah gave us the blueprint for salvation so many centuries before Christ arrived. All that is required is for us to believe in Him, confess with our mouths that Jesus Christ is the one true Son of God and that He died for our sins, on the third day arose and sits at the right hand of God the Father.
“How is that setting me free of my bondages, my addictions?”
Once you truly accept Jesus into your life, your body, mind and soul begin to change in ways that you had never before thought possible. For some, it’s instantaneous. But for most, it takes years for the transformation to be complete. Slowly, day by day, you will find the more precious gifts in life have no price tag: The morning dew on the blooming flower at sunrise: The call of the whippoorwill at dusk, as the fireflies begin their dance across the pasture: The brilliant sunset against a sky of clouds arranged such that their golden seat of God’s heavenly throne is all but complete.
My world is now anything but inside the box. I have chosen not to turn my own way, but His.
I now live in the world solely outside the box, walking in His pathway.
The dash is not a sprint, it’s a lifelong journey and living for God has a whole new meaning.
Yes, each day is another exciting spiritual journey that you never know where it will end.
Thanks be to God.
“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” -Isaiah 53:5-6
