Psalm 124:7 NLT

'We escaped like a bird from a hunter’s trap. The trap is broken, and we are free!'

Martin Laird in his beautiful and practical guide, Into the Silent Land (DLT), tells of an observation he made during a regular walk he took. He witnessed a dog walker with four Kerry blue terriers. While three ran far and wide across the open countryside, one amused itself by running around in circles. Intrigued, he eventually asked the owner about this unusual behaviour. The owner replied that this terrier had lived practically all its life in a cage and could only exercise by running around in circles. And so despite the rolling countryside it continued to do what it knew, running around in circles.

Laird contrasts the terrier’s running pattern with our own. Although freed through God’s grace and invited to express ourselves in the freedom Christ imparts, we behave as if still constrained by our sin. Our former prison consumes all our thoughts and we live in the shadow of what has passed rather than the light that is ours today in full.

Our lives can be severely limited if we are unable to take hold of our freedom in Christ. Despite being found by God, we live as if we are now forever in search of God. Our worship calls out asking God to meet us, when we are already one with our Maker.

So much of our sadness is because we live as though the prison bars remain a reality. Yet, the door is open and the keys have been thrown away. We continue to call out to God when in fact he is consistently with us. God never steps away from us. We alone move away from God. I may not think or feel that close to God in times of sadness, yet I am no more distant than in times of complete joy and fullness. This is the wonder of God; that I am in him amid the darkest storm as on the sunniest of picnic days.

QUESTION: Are you still running around living a life shaped by the prison from which God set you free?

PRAYER: Thank you for your abiding loving presence in my life. Help me to abide in you.