When I was a kid, I hated reading. I really did. It was to the point that my parents had to bribe me with money to finish a book; that my mom would let me read trashy romance novels as a teenager just so I would read something! I was always much happier playing with my dolls, hitting a tennis ball against the neighbor’s wall, or creating a floorplan for the house of the family of the book I would never actually write.
But there was one exception: Choose Your Own Adventures.
Do you remember these? You would read about three pages of a story and then would have an option of what came next. Would you like to go through the swamp or up the mountain? The choice was yours and there were totally different outcomes depending on the choices you made.
I have already introduced the concept of lies that have the power to enslave us. These are generally ongoing and universal. They are constantly thrown at us day after day. And they are usually there for the taking for every human being on the earth. Our job is to identify them and fight them again and again, each time they pop up.
This next category is different. I name these “The Un’s that Enslave Us.” As I was brainstorming, the pattern just emerged that almost all of them could be described with an “un” prefix: Unforgiveness, unresolved anger, unfaced trauma… you get the idea. These stumbling blocks are different from the lies in this:
While the lies are constant and ongoing, the “Un’s” are usually a response to a specific, unique event or pattern of events.
The shackles in this category are unique to your particular life. While many of us may experience the same shackling, it is almost always the result of different experiences. It often involves a moment of needed reckoning and action that either didn’t happen or didn’t happen well. In that moment (or as the culmination of many “moments”) you have a decision to make between two paths—one that leads to life and freedom and one that leads to enslavement. When you choose the “un” you choose the latter.
Let me give you a couple of examples.
Unforgiveness. This nasty and powerful “un” is always in response to a specific moment. Perhaps it was something someone said to you or did to you. Perhaps it was gossip spread. Perhaps it was someone’s failure to act on your behalf when you felt they should have. It is a moment of betrayal or injury that requires a response: Will you forgive? Or will you choose unforgiveness?
Unhealthy Habits: Often this one is more the result of the culmination of life circumstances and events. We endure abuse as a child and as a result we withdraw love from those who are actually a safe place for us. We struggle to fit in as awkward pubescent teenagers, and we respond by controlling our eating to the point of an eating disorder. We find ourselves in a consistently stressful work environment, so we end up drinking too much each night in an attempt to erase the anxieties of the day. We try and deal with the circumstances through paths that actually only serve to make things worse.
The “Un’s” in our lives are like weeds that we have allowed to grow and choke out the life that God has for us.
The good news is that there is an antidote for each one—a Master Gardener who loves us and is ready and willing to get in there with pruning shears… but only if we will let Him!