Freedom from the Muck

Looking below the surface of our lives can be a threatening, enlightening, scary proposition. There’s a good bit of muck down there, and it takes some courage to even take a peek. We want to be free, but it’s much safer to rationalize that everything is okay, to settle into an uneasy comfortableness that shelters us from changing. Occasionally, however, the pain becomes so great we are forced out of our self imposed comfort zone in search for answers.

Lately I’ve been raking up some of the muck in my own life as I step back to take a spiritual and emotional inventory. It’s not like it’s all bad, there’s sunshine but there’s also some definite mis-shaping. Like the tendency to be anxious - separation anxiety that started as a child and spread to other areas of my life as an adult. And the inclination to need approval from others – resulting in discouragement when it’s lacking. And the propensity to be defensive at honest feedback – rather than asking questions to better understand myself.

The good news is that there’s no need to stay stuck in shortcomings and sin. There is hope, liberation…freedom. An honest assessment beneath the surface of our lives is only the first step. The next step is to realize how our theology is lived.

So, I’m beginning to try to piece together how the gospel with all of its implications does its deep work in me. How does my inheritance as a reconciled son come into play when I feel defensive and unapproachable? Where does my anxiousness or anger meet up with Christ’s transforming power? My position in Christ makes me come alive inside, so how does it release me from internalized lies I’ve believed about myself? If it was for freedom I have been set free, why do I live in slavery to others’ thoughts and approval? How does daily attention to the Lord increase the reality of being a beloved son?

It’s in the willingness to see ourselves as we really are and in the willingness to be continually transformed by the gospel that we are finally and steadfastly set free from the muck of our lives.