This week’s She Reads Truth devotional focused a lot on the chains that Christ freed us from when he fulfilled the Lord’s promise. We’ve been asked numerous times this week to meditate on the metaphorical chains in our lives that have kept us slaves to the old way of thinking, unable to fulfill our and His purpose.
When I think of chains in my spiritual life, I think of my struggle with sharing my faith, here, on my blog. While Christ has been a huge part of my life for the past 3 years, I was always apprehensive about sharing my spiritual details in an open forum.
Would people think I was dumb?
Would followers think that I was taking myself to seriously and stop reading?
Would I offend someone and turn them away from this place and possibly even from God?
Does anyone really care what I had to say about the Bible? I’m not a scholar after all.
What scared me most about revealing my spiritual life was the inevitable vulnerability that it would cause me. I would be force to deal with naysayers. I would have to find articulate and respectful ways to explain my beliefs, realizing that there are other intelligent, rational human beings on the other side of the debate.
I was so afraid of criticism that I was literally stunting my spiritual growth. I’ve been blessed with this wonderful forum that exposes me to so many amazing people and yet I wasn’t courageous enough to share with them my most sacred beliefs.
At a certain point, I had to convince myself to stop running and to start using this forum to expand my spiritual boundaries.
The amazing part is not that I convinced myself to do it (I just needed to have a little faith–pun intended in myself)—it’s that writing about my faith has been so freeing.
But I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised because when we let Christ’s spirit dwell within our hearts he sets us FREE.
Because his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir. Galatians 4:6-7
In freeing my faith into this space, I’ve allowed Christ to dwell more deeply in my heart, growing my faith by leaps and bounds. How silly was I to think that holding onto these chains wasn’t stunting my faith?
So I ask you today, what are the chains in your spiritual life?
What is making you a slave to the earthly world and not the spiritual world?
Will you drop those chains and join me as an heir to God’s beautiful promises?
