Looking at some photography of mine I glance past a photo taken in the sand dunes and the focus is not on the person standing in the sand, but the hills beyond it and how sometimes the focus isn’t us but on the things around us in some photo. Just like at our ocean shore we can view our sand as beauty or as a struggle. As we continue onto this journey called life we often begin to feel a heaviness. Maybe something in your path has taken a turn for the worst or maybe something in the past has come to the surface and it is a burden that now is the focus of your mind that you can’t seem to get past. Our focus seems blurred and what we are focusing on is what is right in front of us and behind us. It’s as if we have holding us back from the destination we started on or if we are still going that direction the heaviness makes us weary and the journey is taking us much longer then we anticipated.
In life we carry a lot inside of us and as we grow we put our own struggles, sins, and blemishes on ourselves. These things can hinder us from going to where God has called us. When I think of these struggles it reminds me of chains these are old fashion chains that link together and at the very end is a big weight on the end the keeps you from moving very fair. Each link is something added on by the enemy or something we have played on ourselves. These can be guilt, shame, anxiety, lust, identity, depression, comparison, and so many more that may not even be known that have been shackled on us.
These chains are not visible to then eye but are deep within us.
Everyone has their own links.
Each day we have a choice to hold onto these long links and drag the weight of the worlds distractions, temptations, views, comments, and thoughts that we often times will take over the key Jesus has given us… Freedom
We walk for years with these burdens and all along we have had the key around our neck like a necklace.
The truth about who we are.
That we lack nothing.
The joy we receive and can give to others.
That there is noting we cannot handle because God has given us the ability to do all things.
The chains tell a story about what we have gone through but they were never supposed to define us or be a burden but something to be shared to give hope. That the links would be a story the testimony that we can share wether we have truly conquer it yet or not. To relate and encourage those who may be still carrying it that need hope to begin weakening the hinges that are around there ankles and wrists. To one day become free of them and show that there is freedom in Jesus and that not one of us is perfect but a masterpiece that Jesus desires to use in the desert. If we allow our burdens to hold us back then we can never get to the destination that Jesus has called us too fully. Sometimes we sit in the sand and we don’t allow the chains the fall because we have become numb to how heavy they are. We’d rather have them and stay in a “familiar” place even though in truth the dunes will sink us deeper and deeper.
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