Recently, I left Home. I use the word Home loosely, as a reference to a place I’ve become quite familiar with and one in which I’ve spent much time throughout my life. It’s been a place of safety, one in which I’ve found comfort. Although it has changed throughout the years, it is a place of predictability. In some ways, it has been a place of stability. I run this place, nothing escapes my notice or attention. Every change is meticulously thought through and approved of by me. I know the layout of this place like the back of my hand. I know each room. I have memorized how each piece of furniture is carefully arranged and where each picture hangs on the wall. The familiarity and assurance of this place that I control makes the outside world seem scary and awfully unknown by comparison.
Earlier in my life I met love. Love goes by many names. He is also known as friend, King and Savior. Love has faithfully dwelt with me in the confines of this place I call Home, but has often beckoned me to explore a world called Faith with Him. He has told me that my entry pass to this world is called Trust and with it I can venture to the lands of Adventure, Possibilities, Hope, as well as Healing, Growth and True Identity. I have been reluctant to leave home and I have settled for what I know as Comfort. But recently, all of this changed. I left the gates of home, with the ticket of Trust in hand and crossed over into the world of Faith.
I have made some startling discoveries in this brave new world. For one, I learned that even though I have exerted so much energy avoiding places like Pain and Uncertainty, I had no idea that the water spring of Tears carries undeniable healing properties and bestows valuable resources needed to enter the lands of Growth, Redemption and Restoration. I’ve always imagined the land of Pain to be quite dreadsome but in fact this place is remarkably beautiful. As I left, Love told me I carried the radiance of its beauty for having walked through it.
Although I imagined the land of Uncertainty to be filled with headaches and confusion, I found that the more I embraced the culture of Uncertainty and accepted Not Knowing, the closer Love and I became. It was in the land of Uncertainty that Love taught me to rest. As I began to stop striving to make sense of this strange place and stopped trying to arrange the world around me in the safe and predictable manner that I had fashioned that place I called Home, a brilliant exchange took place. Love gently pointed to the pin I had proudly affixed to my top. It read “In Control.” He showed me something I had never noticed before. If you flipped the pin to its reverse side, the name Jesus was written. Little had I known this pin, this label, never belonged to me after all and had been wrongfully placed. It was around this time that I chose to surrender to Love the glasses I had relied on up until that point. My prescription was no longer My Own Understanding. In this world of Faith, with Trust as my ticket, I found I had little use for these old lenses, as they had a tendency to distort my view of things.
Most surprisingly, my journey led me back to the place I called Home. One of the things about the land of Faith is it will challenge you and stretch you till at times it’s hard to find what’s comfortable. At times, you find yourself wanting to return to what’s familiar. However, as I approached this place, it looked far different from how I remembered it. As we approached the gate, a small sign read Fear. Before me was a strong fortified structure. What I imagined as a home, now stood before me as a prison with many cells. Fear served as it’s foundation. Without the lenses of My Own Understanding, I could see that the walls of this prison were labeled False Control. The bars of each cell carried the distinguishing labels of a family of lies. I stopped to read a few. Insecurity. Worry. Not Enough. Perfectionism. Oddly enough each cell was fashioned quite comfortably. Cushy couch. Plush bed. Trendy and warm decor.
Having walked through the land of Healing and Growth I could now see that this place I had once affectionately called Home was really a prison of my own design. A bedrock of fear in the depths of my heart had caused me to retreat to a place where I believed I could find refuge and safety. I felt safe inside this structure that contained only things, thoughts, ideas and feelings that I felt I could control. Any emotion, thought or reality that evaded my sense of understanding or control was either not permitted entrance or was drastically modified until it fit the mold of the safe refuge I had created. I realized now that I had failed to recognize the bars of lies that barricaded each cell, as they had been dressed up with tapestries of partial truths and what I felt was supporting evidence that I had picked up through various moments in my life. Perhaps, what was most limiting about this structure was it’s ceiling. Across the ceiling, read a final statement: The End. It suggested a limit, a close to everything I could know or experience and erased the possibility of any other understanding, options, or answers outside of its walls. At any point, when I found the courage to punch a hole through the roof, I would welcome in a vast expanse of sky. Whether it be a sunrise, sunset or a starry night, I would see these words illuminated from the sky: The Truth. I would recognize that these same words had been branded into the heart of the man I called Love and Savior.
Although I find the World of Faith to be scary and unknown at times, I find that when I travel through it with Love that it is the most exhilarating and breathtakingly beautiful place I have ever known. And though I have perhaps traded things like Comfort and Knowing, I have been given something much more sweet…Freedom.
