How Did I Get in This Cage? ~ May 26

May 26, 2013 at 3:00 am · Filed under Daily Encouragements, Inspiration ·Tagged Bible, Charles L. Mashburn, devotions, encouragement, God, hope, Jesus, joy, love, Peace, writer

How Did I Get in This Cage?

And who’s that holding the door open?

Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were loosened. Acts 16:26

Do you ever feel trapped? Most of us do, and I’ve begun to think we build the traps we find ourselves in. I picture them as cages, and they’re made up of all the things and circumstances of our lives we have decided are necessary; necessary being another word for need. There are many bars on the cages we confine ourselves to, and virtually none of them are based on God’s principles.

We stay in jobs that make us miserable, live in locations we don’t enjoy, and do things day after day that make us more and more unhappy. We do these things because we are convinced we have to. I’ve looked, and I can’t find anywhere in the Bible it tells us to do those things.

I visualize Jesus on the outside of the cage of worries (the what-ifs) we’ve built around our lives. He’s standing there holding the door open, smiling, and beckoning us to come out and join him in His world of peace and joy, but we’re cowering in the corner of our homemade cage, saying, “Yes, but…”

The door is open; all we have to do is walk out of the prison we’ve built around us and live the life of freedom Jesus offers us.

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