Ever notice some things come in circles. A kinda deja-vu feeling you get sometimes, perhaps experiences you re-live time and time again. Why does the same thing always go wrong? After a long journey, why does it seem i’m no further ahead? Have i not learned to travel from point A to point B? Have i not read the compass correctly?
Our lives are a journey. At times we do re-visit places, sometimes they are fond memories which bring us back. But it’s the not so fond memories that seem to haunt us. We try to get away, but then we re-live that memory again, albeit often through a new experience which makes it seem like we’re walking in circles. And then we ask why do we end up back in the same place in life? Don’t i have my destination plotted? Don’t i have a vision of my goal?
The Bible tells us stories of many journeys. one of the most well known is the 40 year trek it took the Israelites to reach the promised land! FOURTY YEAR TREK?!! They should have reached at least China by then, or crossed the Bering sea to Alaska, or even all the way through South America in 40 years! But they couldn’t find their way out of a wilderness of just a couple hundred square miles...
How often are we stuck in the same place with our lives? It just doesn’t get any better, though it should,.. we don’t travel any further through we could,.. it’s as if we can’t break the invisible chain that no one else can see! And if it’s so, are we really free?
The people of Israel were freed from Egyptian chains, yet were not freed from their own invisible chains. They needed to learn a lesson they somehow didn’t understand. They still had the mindset of a prisoner. True freedom, and real movement does not begin and end with physical freedom. It begins with the renewing of our minds. Sunday in church, i heard testimonies from two ex-convicts who have recently been pardoned and are now free from prison. One of the guys shared this statement: "Penitentiary is a place, but prison is a mindset”
How many people are physically free, yet imprisoned by their minds? Someone within the walls of a penitentiary can be more free than someone wandering in freedom, in a desert or concrete jungle. Were the Israelites free to wander for 40 years? Yes, physically free, but their mindset imprisoned them to place they could not leave.
What is our mindset? Are we imprisoned by our own thought patterns, or are we truly free to see our destination, and the path God has ordained for us? Do we keep going in circles oblivious to the lessons we should learn, or do we learn and move ahead in our lives? What is my destination? What is my goal? What do i need to learn to move on from here? Something to ask yourself the next time you have a deja-vu moment, or find yourself where you’ve been once before...
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