The largest land animals, elephants are amazing creatures. They can carry the equivalent weight of over 100 human adults. Their powerful trunks can uproot trees or hold up to four gallons of water at a time. Their sense of smell is over 100 times greater than a dog’s. They only sleep 2-3 hours a day. And they can make purring noises like a cat! No animal in creation compares in strength to an elephant.
Yet people in India routinely train them by shackling a baby elephant’s foot and securing it to an iron stake in the ground with a strong rope. Repeatedly the animal fights to break loose. Once the elephant stops struggling, however, the trainer has succeeded. Later in life, if the huge animal understood physics or its own natural strength, it could easily run away to freedom. But because it repeatedly failed to break free when young, it acquiesces for the remainder of its life.
Elephants act on what they believe. And so do we.
For many years I lived limited by shackling beliefs. Believing my weight determined my worth, I disappointedly focused on my bathroom scale. Believing determination and willpower would lead to success . . . I constantly fell flat. Believing I had to behave perfectly for God to love me, I lived under a cloud of condemnation. Blindly following these self-imposed constraints led me nowhere.
Then one day I awoke with a mind-bending thought: God was not mad at me. What?!! Everything in me shouted that this did not make sense. But I decided to take the leap of faith. I started examining my beliefs realizing they only limited me because I empowered them.
It was for freedom that Christ set us free (Galatians 5:1). Jesus didn’t take my sins and punishment upon Himself so I could feel miserable and condemned. He wants me free! Following God’s love and grace led me out of bondage.
All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! (Romans 6:18 – MSG)
Everything in my world took on a new appearance as I gradually comprehended what this meant. The more I saw myself as free, the more my actions followed suit.
Now my Christian life consists of recognizing other shackles (limiting beliefs) binding me, realizing I’m not a slave to those thoughts, and focusing on God’s truths that shatter those chains. The more I get my eyes off myself and focus instead on my blood-bought liberty, the more I find myself walking in freedom.
I Corinthians 10:13 declares, No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.
You don’t find freedom focusing on your chains, but by believing God has already empowered you to break free of them. In Christ you have the spiritual strength of an elephant!
Thanks, Carrie – liked the pic of the chains around the brain!!