I remember when we switched Addie from a crib to a “big girl bed” (a toddler bed). Lower to the ground, she could finally get in and out as she pleased. As we find difficulties with our younger two making the same transition, I’m reminded of how much Addie loved staying in her bed.
She seemed to be comforted by the bars, snuggling up against them like she used to in her crib days.In the book of Exodus, we see Moses offer Pharaoh a chance to get rid of the plague of frogs. Pharaoh responds, “come back tomorrow and do it”. (Exodus 8:10) Which begs an obvious question: If the plague was so terrible (and it seems to have been), why spend an extra night sleeping with the frogs?
We’ve been offered freedom. Freedom to exist, live, relate, receive, and build towards the Kingdom of God. To make choices and decisions based not on what the world would think, our friends or family or social structures at school or work. Not to make choices selfishly based on what “we want, or think” (which can change easily based on emotions/situations) . But actually based on how the Kingdom of God (the Reign and Rule of God) is revealed to exist, both now and coming.
We are given this freedom. The freedom to know we’ve been created for a purpose. The freedom to not have to “conquer” the situations of our life in order to prove the “power” of that freedom. But at the same time, the freedom to stand in the name of God in the midst of injustice, and work towards justice.
But at the same time, we press our faces comfortably against the railings we know so well. The railings of materialism. Of unforgiveness. The railings of jealousy, of pride, of anger. We spend another night captive, maybe out of fear, and maybe out of laziness, or maybe because last time we slept without the railing we fell out of bed and got bruised.
But it still remains. We have been made free. Life to it’s fullest, the nature of God, and the Kingdom He is revealing…all drawing us nearer…
words from wick 