Slavery and Grace

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, 
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, 
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." 

(Philippians 4:6-7 NIV)

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, 

out of the land of slavery." 

(Exodus 20:2 NIV)

I might have put together two of the most diverse passages in the Bible. They could not be more different. One comes from the Old Testament while the other from the New. Their differences are even greater in fact that one is the opening to the Ten Commandments and the other is a closing teaching in a letter from Paul. Why did I put these two passages from two different ends of the Bible together?

September is suicide awareness month.  Suicide prevention is not as glamorous or cool as cancer reserch to support. People are not out proclaiming they are a survivor of suicide. We do not hold up survivors with applauds and rejoicing.  There are no suicide prevention t-shirts or bracelets. There is not even a commonly know "ribbon" color. Suicide prevention has no cool slogans. In most situations, survivors do their best to hide the fact. Others who have thought about suicide will not or rarely talk about it. Mental Illness has a stigma in society. This is why I have put these two passages together. Individuals with anxiety related illnesses feel like slaves.

I battle with anxiety. The best defense I have found was no defense. I let the anxiety win and just let it control me. Till I allowed it to just about destroy relationships and my life. If it was not for my wife, I do not know what would have been the end result.

But, I saw the passage from Philippians last week on a friends Facebook page and it overcame me. When I read the whole passage, my faith took a dent. Anxiety is part of who I am. Yet, Paul calls us to trust in God and peace will overcome us. When anxiety takes control, there is little peace let alone letting go.

I felt a nudge from God to write an article on this passage last week. I did not as you can tell. It was not till today I got a connection. Exodus is the story of the people of Israel being brought from slavery. I am enslaved to anxiety and depression. I meditated on the passage above. I believe I need to focus first on being freed from the slavery of anxiety before I can give it up to God. The good news of the gospel and for all of us suffering is that we are accepted by God. God does not take us after we become perfect or fixed. In a life lived with God, we learn to trust more and more in God. I am being taught that aspect of my faith.

I write this hoping a few people who read this will look differently at people with mental illness. I am sure some people might look at me differently after they read this. I hope they do not. I hope they see the strength and courage of my family who walk with this illness. I hope more importantly that we will soon find the courage as a society to walk with people having mental illness and be will to get help to individuals. The chains of mental illness are strong. It takes a lot of strong people to help hold the bolt cutters to release the slave. 

If you want to be a help, here is the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) webpage for warning signs. And, this is the link for their homepage. 

We Want . . .

"But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, . . ." 

(1 Sam. 8: 19-20, NIV)

These are the words of the people of Israel to Samuel. He was aging and the children were not following in God's ways. The people were worried about the future and did not want the children of Samuel to lead them. The people wanted a king like all the other nations. They wanted to be just like every other nation. Someone to lead them into battle. Someone to fight battles on their behalf. But they were forgetting something important.

It was not Samuel who was accomplishing this for them already. It was not any of the other leaders in the history of Israel. Moses was not leading them into battle or fighting on their behalf as they travel in the wilderness. It was not Joshua who battled at Jericho or helped them through the concurring of the Promised Land. All of these events and the time of the Judges was not accomplished because of the powers of the people in charge. No. It was all accomplished by the power of God. God lead the people out of Egypt. God gave directions to Moses through the wilderness. God lead the people through the Promised Land. 

The people were not rejecting Samuel at this time. No, God reported to Samuel it was not his leadership the people were rejecting. The people were rejecting God. They were turning their backs on the leadership of God. God had declared to the people when they were at Sinai that God was to be the king. 

This was the prescription through out the history of Israel. As we read through the prophets, the people kept turning their backs on God. And it is the the case of people today. We as followers do not want to follow. We want to make our own ways. We think we know more than God. Our ways are better than God's 

We can act like the Israelis  and reject God. Or we can learn to follow and accept God as our king. Jesus asked the same thing of His followers in the New Testament. Jesus did not want us to just give a portion. No, He asked for us to give and trust completely. Are you willing to fall into place?