Saturday, October 15, 2005
Not cooked yet
Before I move on to thankfulness, hopes, and dreams let me write the following. It's from an email where a friend and I were writing about "how" to hope. This joins it midstream.
Cautious hope is barely hope at all. Hope that needs to have such parameters really is fear invading our future. We are afraid to dream, to let go of the past. Especially to let go of what may happen, because we've experienced bad things and know that bad things always happen in life.
We're like the kids in the playground, afraid to use the slide because we catapulted off the end and hurt ourselves bad a few times. Or avoiding bike riding with friends because we have repeatedly fallen and walked home with bleeding, sore knees. You have your own analogies. Afraid to trust, afraid to love, afraid to hope, afraid to let go. The deal is...its in our heads. We have let fear take its grip. Fear of the unknown is freaky. Fear of repetition of what we have seen or heard or experienced is paralyzing. But it becomes "safe" and comfortable in its familiarity. It is actually dangerous and killing us, but like the frog that can willingly be killed by slowly heating the water its in, we are numb to its effects. We don't see the death until it has taken us almost fully.
But we aren't cooked unless we let it happen. That's the difference between us and the frog. We can stop it, with Christ's strength. We don't need to leap out of the water and proclaim "it's a miracle!" A slow rousing will do. An awakening. Commitment.
Cautious hope is barely hope at all. Hope that needs to have such parameters really is fear invading our future. We are afraid to dream, to let go of the past. Especially to let go of what may happen, because we've experienced bad things and know that bad things always happen in life.
We're like the kids in the playground, afraid to use the slide because we catapulted off the end and hurt ourselves bad a few times. Or avoiding bike riding with friends because we have repeatedly fallen and walked home with bleeding, sore knees. You have your own analogies. Afraid to trust, afraid to love, afraid to hope, afraid to let go. The deal is...its in our heads. We have let fear take its grip. Fear of the unknown is freaky. Fear of repetition of what we have seen or heard or experienced is paralyzing. But it becomes "safe" and comfortable in its familiarity. It is actually dangerous and killing us, but like the frog that can willingly be killed by slowly heating the water its in, we are numb to its effects. We don't see the death until it has taken us almost fully.
But we aren't cooked unless we let it happen. That's the difference between us and the frog. We can stop it, with Christ's strength. We don't need to leap out of the water and proclaim "it's a miracle!" A slow rousing will do. An awakening. Commitment.
// posted by Annette @ 9:18 a.m. 