[Discoveries] 09-10-08 Big Idea #10 -- John 11:44

[Inspiration in Your Inbox]

"/*Loose him and let him go." -- John 11:44*/

Big Idea #10. God doesn't like a straight jacket any more than we do.

One of the proudest moments of my life was in May of 1978 when I was 
chosen as the male graduating class speaker at Moody Bible Institute. 
This was my text: John 11:44. It was an ambitious text for a twenty-year 
old college about-to-be graduate -- ambitious because I didn't know what 
it meant, and I knew that I didn't know.

But I spoke on it anyway and it has become a theme for my life. Loose 
him and let him go. I see now that deep inside I believed that there was 
something more to the Christian life than play-acting religion. I 
believed that if you somehow found out how to connect with God that you 
would be free -- really free inside.

I didn't know back then what freedom would look like or taste like. I 
just knew that I wanted it, whatever it was.

It seems hard to believe that thirty years have gone by since that day I 
stood at the podium in Torrey-Gray Auditorium. In these years that have 
gone by, I have visited many of the prisons inside my own soul -- 
prisons that kept me confined. And, just like with Peter, God has sent 
His angel to wake me up, to loose my chains, to open the door and to 
show me the way to freedom.

But a funny thing happened here that I didn't expect. The more free God 
makes me, the more free God Himself is. Free to do what He wants. Free 
to do it the way He wants to. Free to change my paradigms and let me see 
things a different way. People call it taking God out of the box. Well, 
that can be a scary thing, until we experience the freeing presence of 
God. Then we discover that freedom -- true freedom -- is how we -- and 
God -- are meant to be.

Be encouraged!
Dwight

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