Untangling

You can sit for hours in the same chair. You are surfing the internet, flipping the TV channels, turning the pages of a textbook, staring at the wall. Normal, everyday ventures. You fill your time. Laugh for a moment. Entertained for an expanse. No real plan, mildly bored. You keep sitting. Must find something. Feel lazy. Another hour passes. A sappy movie watched. It was good while it lasted. Your feet start falling asleep; a dark shadow of numbness clogs your toes. You stare out into space. Don’t care if your feet dissolve into a tingling seclusion. You are oblivious to your senses. The chair is so comfortable though, you don’t want to get up. You start changing the channels again…only to find out there is nothing to satisfy, nothing real. And then you are left sitting in the chair, sickened by the hours you’ve tossed, a sort of nauseated existence, glued down by something sticky and routine. You are searching, but not finding. You are sitting and not caring why.

Sitting down when you could be standing up. Looking to things on earth, building an immunity against anything uncomfortable and piercing to the heart.

Many people sit their whole lives. A numbness to the truth beyond the couch. Not physically sitting, but stuck in the same thought process. The hum-drum. The spell of the earth’s chant capturing them in its tempting snare, hardening their hearts. People so deeply entrenched in the world, so reluctant to take God into account.

“We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.”

We are sort of stuck in a chair and changing the wrong channels. We hope the new cars will fill us. It won’t. So we change the channel. We think the awesome job right out of college will give us supreme satisfaction. It doesn’t. We try another TV show. We get in a relationship, thinking that the humanly love will fill us and never displease. But that person cannot replace the most important factor, neither can the car, the job. There will always be something missing unless you find out what it truly is. And it is the love, the light found in God.

So become blank for a moment. Sit in that chair. Turn on the television in your mind. What ‘channels’ do you immediately turn to? The shopping network, you love clothing. Forget it. Your money runs out. You like sports, it fills you, gives you the good life. You ruin your knee. Goodbye NFL. The educational channel, good grades are fun! You fail a class. So long med school.

And then you cringe. You happen upon a channel exposing everything evil you’ve ever done. Pause for a second. Resist the urge to change the channel. Think about lying, cheating, hating…You’ve done at least one of those things…Imagine everything you’ve said being played on the big screen in front of everyone you’ve ever talked badly about…You are stuck in that chair…

But you can change the channel. All you have to do it stand up. Stand up. Look up. Jesus died to take away the guilt of sins in your life so that you might have full life, forgiveness. Think about your life. Why are you even here? Beyond the surface. Think. Life can’t be about good grades, having fun, finding a sweet job. All of those things fade away, are too fragile and short. Just try standing up. Get rid of that numbness in your feet. Look up. Maybe open up a bible. Learn a little more about God. He’s real. It’s not a story, another channel on the screen. He’s the ultimate Movie Star, the great Director. He wants you to play a role in His story. Will you stand?

“For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.”