None of Us Our Free

Today's Song: None of Us Are Free
The Voice: Solomon Burke

The Thoughts:


as we enter into Advent, we try to put on our old school jewish hats . . . we try to imagine what life was like as they anticipated the messiahs first arrival.

again, we look back and see a people who spent generations in exile . . .
then in slavery . . .
then wandering . . .

they lived a life without a foundation. without safety.

there is a long history of unfortunate things that happened TO the jewish people . . .
but there is also a long, painful story to be told of the constant push and pull between god and his people.
from the beginning, we see this.
and all through the old testament.

i remember sitting in my old testament class during my second semester of seminary . . . i had just graduated from college, where, despite (or perhaps because of) my high involvement in a campus ministry, i left feeling completely disillusioned in my faith. it was rattled. i had arrived at a place where i had too much evidence to deny god's existence . . . i even saw that he was good . . . and that he loved people . . . but i had too much evidence to the contrary to believe that he loved ME.
still, i left college and went to seminary to study the bible and counseling.


i sat in that class, and for the first several months, i was overwhelmed by god's harshness.
the way he punished.
the way he doomed.
the way he cursed.
and even destroyed.

line after line. chapter after chapter.
i was disgusted.
with him.
but the more the people messed up, the more he gave them a second chance. consistently . . .

what an interesting sensibility our god has.
he really took the spiritual, internal reality of his beloved people . . . spiritually enslaved.
and he caused them to have a very external, tangible experience with it.
wow.

we are spititual slaves to anything that is not of god.
on top of their unfaithfulness to god . . . their adulterous hearts . . .
they would eventually become actual, physical, human slaves to an empire that did not, and would not confess god's name.

that is like the ultimate object lesson.

they were enslaved
and they longed to be free

it makes me wonder . . .
what am i enslaved to?