There are times in life when you feel stuck; stuck between a rock type obstacle and a stubborn hard place. I am very familiar with the feel. I am there. You’ve probably been there before too. You know the pain of it…the confusion of it…the frustration…the fear. It closes in like the walls of an MRI, leaving little room to move. It intrudes into your personal space like an IV in the arm…dangling awkwardly…relentlessly pinching. It’s cold and intimidating like a sterile pre op room, where you anxiously wait…alone. It’s unyielding like the overpowering emotion when the nurse wakes you in recovery. It’s unescapable like test results in your inbox.
The compression of it all can make a soul look for any escape possible, any way out. But what I’ve found is that retreat doesn’t help, not in the long run. To leave the operating room prematurely is to leave without a completed work…still broken…still diseased. Any time we spend looking for an escape apart from Jesus only extends our stay. It sends us back and then around again. Nothing behind is enough for what’s ahead. We have to choose forward, even when the stone before us seems immovable.
I wake up every day believing that this could be the one when God heals me. I believe my God is able, but there is a fine distinction between believing for a thing and believing in God. I am careful to often check my heart so that I’m not placing my hope in a healing. That kind of hope makes a heart sick when it’s deferred, but a hope set on God does not disappoint. It is a constant balance on a very thin line.
When life delays, substitutes start looking good. We begin seeing a way out in places that will never rescue. We cling to manufactured comforts that will never deliver. Our hearts begin to deceive us, and our eyes wander from the only One that can truly save. These escapes are mirages offered up by a very cunning enemy. Don’t take the bait. Any comfort or relief apart from God is a hook used to pull you away from Him. The hook pulls harder and digs deeper every time we acquiesce….every time we shift our hope from God to the substitute.
I don’t know what your hooks are. I’ve become very familiar with mine. I catch glimpses of them in my moments of weakness. My mind mistakes the shine of the hook for something worth having. When I feel closed in and stuck, I want to run…anywhere. I want to cling…to anything. But that will never do. It won’t bring what it promises. It would be a sprint into the arms of a vice that will eventually enslave. I’d be caught like a fish on the end of a well cast line. When the claustrophobia of it presses all the buttons in me, I have to turn to the only one that can enlarge my territory. I have to lean on the goodness of The God that never leaves…that always finishes what He starts.
So, I escape to Him. I reach into the deep in me, and I cling to the deep in Him. I don’t go shopping. I put the book down. I don’t start a new project. I deny anything that could become addictive. I bridle my imagination. I take captive the nagging or tempting thoughts. I don’t call a friend. I look unto Him, where my help comes from. I stop and let Him be enough. I let deep call to deep, and I sit as He washes over me. Then I see the smile of God in the sunshine. Then I see Him everywhere. I find Him everywhere. And in Him, I find the strength to move forward again despite all obstacles.