” TIED UP “

When I was young we had a Bulldog, named Buddy. He was a good squirrel dog as well as watch dog. He was actually part Hound and part Bulldog. You could not keep him in a pen. He would either climb out or dig out. But anyone he didn’t know, he would bite, so we had to put him on a chain a lot of times.  He loved to go riding in the truck. He would stand and look over the dash out the window.  Once while driving down a dirt road when a squirrel crossed the road in front of us. Man……he shot out the window like a bullet and actually tree’d the squirrel.

He was a good dog and lived to be a ripe ole age before he finally checked out. When we first put him on this chain, he fought it for a little while, but finally got used to it. After a couple of days he didn’t even tug on it anymore. He knew just how far he could go, and if it got twisted around something he learned how to wiggle around and get himself un-twisted. But this chain became a part of his life.

It is the same way in life. People have been hurt by different things in their lives, different relationships, church hurts, things people have said about us, and the list could go on. And because of these hurts we find ourselves bound by offenses and the enemy just keeps piling on any and everything he can to keep us oppressed. We get so used to these chains and being bound that we, just like the dog, quit fighting for freedom. We learn to adapt our life to accommodate the chain instead of striving for freedom.

If the yoke you are carrying is hard, you are carrying the wrong yoke. Jesus said “My yoke is easy, my burden is light “. Jesus came to give us Life and that more Abundantly. He does not place things on us or allow bad things to happen to us. He is our protector and liberator . He came to set us free, not tie us down. The Gospel…..The Good News……God loves us as much as he does Jesus. We can be free , healed, whole, and be in our right mind with Jesus.

Lord help me to always strive to be free from the hurts and struggles of this world. Help me to not grow accustomed to The Chain………