Throwing off What Hinders

I was petting a few of our kittens the other day and thinking about when they were even smaller. Their mom was feral, and she was always trying to put them in dark environments. The kittens hated it and would crawl away the moment she wasn't looking to frolic in the sunshine. But the funny thing is that after the momma cat deserted the kittens, they would still crawl back into these awful, dark, and dirty places every night and sometimes during the day. They went back to these places because they were familiar. The kittens eyes were barely opened, and they knew their way around the dingy parts of the barn or the underpinning of the house. Even though they still hated being in darkness, they chose the familiar.

This is actually the perfect example of what we do as Christians when we hold onto the familiar sins that we cherish. After the Holy Spirit becomes a part of our lives, we are technically no longer blinded. The blindfold has been removed. But, like the apostle Saul/Paul, it takes a while for us, even after the moment of revelation occurs, to fully adapt to seeing in a world that is different than what we initially thought. I rediscovered a sin pattern this past week that has plaguing me for quite some time. I learned that though I am no longer fully blinded by the patterns of the world, I still don't quite see with God's eyes. I see with my own fallen vision, a vision that though better than before is still not fully formed.

It's funny that even after we receive the wonderful gift called Salvation we still cling to the familiar, the sins, that though comfortable are by no means beneficial.

C.S. Lewis once said,"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

We are often pleased by what our lives offered before we were children of God. Though we throw away some of the sin that hinders us, we very rarely run the race to the best of ability. We give ourselves handicaps, dragging a foot or two behind us because we can't imagine a full turn around. We would often rather eat "mud pies" than experience the full vision and plan of Christ. This is because the mud pies are familiar and it takes faith to run a race that only God knows the outcome of.

We would often rather sit in the McDonald's parking lot stuffing our faces with carbs than run a race mapped out for us, a race that makes our lives have meaning, a race that with each step helps us see more fully. When we do chose to run with no inhibitions, amazing things happen. With each meter mark, a piece of the blindfold falls to the ground, and we begin to see what we have missing by taking so many water breaks and lagging behind when we should be pressing forward.