Suffocating Freedom

Dear Kids,

Jeremiah 10:23. “I know, O Lord, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.

A few weeks ago I enjoyed watching your cousin’s hamster, Brute, running around in his glass cage. When tired of burying himself in the fluffy bedding, he searched around the outside of the glass looking for a way to escape the confines of his home.

One day your cousin Christian and I put him in a green plastic ball and let him roll around on the floor. He ran and ran covering all lengths of the big room. I am sure he felt elated in his newfound “freedom,” but if his little hamster brain could think, he would realize that he had just gone from one type of confinement into a much smaller suffocating sphere of plastic. The fact that he was able to roam around the whole room wasn’t freedom at all, but only a diversion from his everyday existence.

Though Christian and I decided to allow him the ability to explore, we knew that if we let him completely loose he would run away, get lost, and probably die of starvation or injury. So we did the next best thing by giving him opportunity while still maintaining control.

People are often like Brute. We get tired of the place that God has put us and desire to experience more of what the world has to offer. Sometimes God allows us that opportunity for the purpose of showing us that doing things our way, though often exciting for a time, ends up restricting us more than we were before. We may believe that we are controlling our own destiny, but the truth is that our lives are never our own. We belong to God and He directs our steps.

God is a kind and loving God who places boundaries in our lives not to harm us, but to protect us. He has plans that are to prosper us and not to harm us; plans to give us a hope and a future if we do things His way. If we would recognize God’s plan as the safest and most productive way to live, we wouldn’t chafe under our circumstances, but would embrace them.

I hope Brute enjoyed his foray through the room, but in the end I think he was glad to get out of that suffocating ball and go back into his cage where he belonged. Let’s remember that we, like Brute, belong to a loving Master Who wants only our best and Who will protect us to the extent that we allow Him to do so.

Love,

Mama