I hate to admit it, but I live in a box. It's a box created for me by others, by business, family, friends and the world around me. But the really sad truth is that I willingly climbed in the box and taped the lid shut...never asking if it was a box I should be in at all, never thinking about the implications of such a box in my life. Like everyone around me I was given a box by someone somewhere and willingly made it my own and even wrote my name on it! It became part of my identity.Like children playing, making cars, houses and forts out of boxes we adults build invisible boxes for one another. Boxes of expectation, roles, position, and a hundred other words to describe the box we have come to call our identity, or role, our "place". We never stop to think about what that box means, how it might affect us and our choices or the way we think. Our box limits our choices, restricts our vision, and frustrates our gifts.
This morning I had coffee with a good friend who told me I was living in a box. He didn't know where I got it, but he described it well. As he listened to me he made me aware of how restricted my vision had become because of the box I had accepted many years ago. It was humbling to realize I had been given a box and had never questioned its role in my life. Was it right? Should I get into it? Is this the way I should live? Is this how I should think?
Without any questions I took the boxes handed me and made them my own. They have limited me, identified me, and restricted God's work in my life. How did I ever let this happen? Why did I believe this box was what I needed to identify me?
Children love boxes. They aren't so much fun when they define your life, your thinking or your values as an adult. I can't believe that I let this happen....happy to look out the hole I had cut in my box and survey the world around me....trying to make boxes like mine for others....only to find I had made prisoners of us all.
I'm taking a different tack today as I look at my thoughts and my life. I've decided it's time to be done with the boxes of childhood and walk in the freedom of the grace that Christ has provided.
Read Romans 8 as you look at your own life. What boxes have you made your own? How have you missed God's grace by accepting the boxes others have given you?
4 comments:
Boxes are not all bad. They are comfortable for a time. They provide structure and a since of belonging. The problem with boxes are that they are not for long term use. God sends His rain and the box has to go. Wet messy boxes are no fun, so God's children need to find the new ones that He is always providing. I have lived in a lot of different boxes over the years. I am always kind of sad when one gets washed away, but He always has provided a better box just around the cornor. We live in tents (boxes) in this wilderness for now, but God is prepairing our mansion and it is just aroud the next bend!
Mike, great comments! Thanks for your added thoughts. A good rain does take care of boxes, doesn't it?
It can be difficult to differentiate between a man-made box and a God-designed limitation. I would love to be a teaching pastor, but as a woman I have God-given parameters within which He requires me to serve. There are a myriad of other areas where the line between His desire and man's expectations is not so clear. I need wisdom to know when to gracefully accept a role and when to fight my way out of a box.
Great thoughts Becky. Wisdom is a big need when it comes to dealing with boxes. I like your contrast, you highlight an important difference between God given roles and the boxes we make or accept. It's often hard to sort all that out, isn't it?
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