The earth grabbed me firmly right around the chest and held me like it didn’t want to let go. I was stuck in a hole right near the end of the Wild Cave Tour offered at Mammoth Cave National Park. A Ranger led our small group as we crawled, wriggled, slithered, scraped and shimmied through the natural underground labyrinth. All morning long, we nudged in and out of some very tight spaces. But this time, I was wedged in tight.
“Relax,” said the Ranger calmly. He understood tense muscles tighten and constrict, and relaxed muscles remain supple. I, however, did not care, and fumed at him for being so calm and seemingly useless, just sitting there, while I was trapped. So, I gritted my teeth and determined to free myself, especially with the rest of the group watching. I strained and I pushed and I flailed. But the more I struggled, the more the rocks held firm.
The truth is, though, the rocks and earth did not have a hold of me. My own actions kept me from freeing myself. My own struggles kept me trapped. The stubborn belief that I could take care of the situation myself left me stuck.
The Ranger left no impression whether he believed in God or not, but his advice neatly summarized Isaiah 30:15: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.” I would never have gotten free unless I had made the conscious decision to not worry any more about the situation, heed the Ranger’s advice to relax, and let go. Likewise, it is not until we acknowledge that Jesus is in control of everything that we can let go of the many things that hold us, confound us, constrict us, and trap us.
The truth is, no matter how much we struggle to free ourselves from bad habits, addictions, relationships, or any situations that grab us, bind us, anger us and scare us, we cannot free ourselves by focusing on them. We cannot slip through the trouble spots of life until we consciously decide to rest and relax based on the truth. The truth is, lasting peace comes only through Jesus Christ. He is the truth, and “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).
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Feel free to print a post in a non-commercial publication (like a church newsletter), link to this site or a specific post, or extract up to 100 words from a post on to another site, as long as you provide a link back to the original post and include the following notice: “©, Sean Connolly. All rights reserved. Originally published at http://freerangedevo.blogspot.com/.”
However, you must have written permission to repost or publish an entire post from my site anywhere on the internet, use a post for commercial purposes including selling or licensing printed or electronic versions of my content, or alter, transform or build upon the content of any post.
