One of our favorite games growing up in our neighborhood was “freeze tag.” For you unfamiliar with the game, it’s tag with a twist. The person who is it, works to tag everyone. When they touch you, you are “frozen” in place and cannot move. The catch is that when you are touched by someone on your team, you are unfrozen and are free to continue to play.
I used to think that I left that game behind years ago, but now I see that a lot of us adults are still playing the game. We allow things to touch us, and it freezes us in place. We become held in bondage by its powers. Adult who are “frozen” say things like this: “I can’t get out of this rut.” “I can’t move,” “I feel stuck.” “There’s no spice in my marriage anymore.” “I’m in a dead-end job.” “I’ve given up trying to change my kids.” “What am I supposed to do now, I’ve worked for that company for 40 years, I don’t know how to do anything else.”
Others are frozen by the touch of alcohol, drugs, pornography, a need for affirmation, self-centeredness, material possessions, or a need to live at a certain comfort level. We are frozen by our looks, by our future, by our past, or our inability to let things go and forgive.
The game of freeze tag continues on, but unlike children, it is no longer a game, and it’s no longer fun.
Bondage is never fun.
The first two steps of Alcoholics Anonymous can help us. Step one is the admission that you are “powerless over alcohol.” When it comes to bondage the first thing we all have to do is admit it. The second step in Alcoholics Anonymous is: “Believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us.”
In Jesus’ first sermon (Luke 4:16-21), he declares that he has come to “bring release to the captives.” Jesus’ first step was to lead them to the point that they could see that they were in fact, living in bondage. The prisoner who decorates his or her jail cell, is still in a jail cell. The one in the hospital room that is filled with cards and flowers, is still in a hospital room. The hospice room, as homey and comfortable as it is, is still a hospice room. The beautiful house where inside a marriage is being destroyed. is not a pretty place. A Ferrari. driven by man with no place to go, and no one to meet, is not a lucky man. The one carrying around the pains of a past event, is someone who cannot live in the joy of today.
Rule one: Admit you’re in bondage.
Rule two: Turn to the higher power of God. To those faced with physical limitations that bound them to a leper colony or to a mat, they went to Jesus who healed them. To those facing the demons of events past, or worries of tomorrow, he cast them out. To those who felt they just had to have more possessions in life to be happy, he let them know that those possessions actually become tyrants that sucked life out of them.
Turn to God and trust God -- after all, he’s doing a pretty good job, with the birds of the air and the lilies in the field, and he cares much more about you (Matthew 6).
Bondage is real – Jesus declares today, that we don’t have to stay there, for he is the great bondage breaker.
In freeze tag, when the one “it” touches you, you can’t move. When someone on your side runs by and touches you, you are free. Jesus is on your side, making you and me, free indeed.
~ Pastor Dan