Trapped Where I Didn't Belong

     As I sat in the great room of the cabin I noticed a wasp gliding across the window, trapped inside. Seventy degrees weather one day to winter temperatures the next had thrown everything into a state of confusion, including the wasps. 

     One wasp after another found it's way into the cabin. The windows created an illusion for them, blocking their flight.  Lethargic from the change of atmosphere it was easy to take them out with one swat of a shoe.

     I couldn't help but see the lessons to be gained. Wasps were created for spreading life, through pollination. Trapped inside the cabin there would be no pollination. Their followed path of seeking warmth led them into places they were never meant to be.

     It applies so much to our lives today in our Christian communities. We are awakened to the warmth of love, inviting us to live in relationship with God, and others. Soon after, the lures of "to do" lists come bounding in, weighing us down with requirements, killing the relationship.

     The lures were familiar to the Pharisees. They called them laws. It was what they were supposed to do to fulfill the requirements of the broken relationship. The law wasn't made to fulfill, it was made to expose. It was established to show man's desperate need for salvation. No one could fully keep the law.  A rescue was needed.  Christ, the one true sacrifice fulfilled the law.

     So why am I still trying to fulfill what was already fulfilled? Like the wasps, I was created to bear life. But instead of dwelling where I was created to dwell, I found myself trapped in places I was never meant to go, stifling out the life poured into me.

     I was made in the image of relationship for relationship. I am made for love. Instead of being taught how deeply I am loved, I was taught to "be about the Father's business".  What is the Father's business anyways? Wasn't it love?  For God so loved the world....

     When I accepted Christ's offer, immediately I was given a list of things I must do to follow Him.  Now that I belonged to God it became about what I did for Him that became the focus. 

     Doesn't that somehow take me back into the law, trapping me where I cannot possibly live? Isn't salvation about love making a way to live in response to relationship instead of requirements?

     What about love? In 22 years of Christian living I never heard anyone say that I was intimately and passionately loved. Oh I heard that Jesus loved me enough to die for me, but no one told me about His continual, relentless pursuit of my heart. No one told me that He would move heaven and earth just to love me. I had no idea that I was the object of His affections. I had no clue of how He truly saw me.

     It is all about love. Jesus didn't come to show us what to do. He came to make a way for love. He broke the binds of the law. He focused on love and what love with invited Him to do.  All that He did, He did to reveal love.

     I was created to live in love. That's it, nothing else. There are no requirements, but only an invitation. Come and be loved.  Allow love to invite you to do. I don't have to discipline myself to have a quiet time, evangelize, make disciples, or have a prayer list. If I am living loved I will naturally choose those things.

     As I grasp the depth of how precious I am to Him I cannot hold the love in. It will come out. I will be drawn away with Him to hear and read His Word, pray for those things that burden His heart and make disciples because the love in me will not keep silent.

     The traps of religion fall away as I enter into living loved with the one who loves me perfectly.  The warmth of His love frees me, inviting me to bear life exactly where He desires it to be offered.  Unlike the wasps, a door is opened for me and I am set free.  I am not only free to live as love directs.  That is the invitation.   

     For God, SO loved the world that He invited us to be loved, fully, completely, just as we are.  It is the good news of the gospel of salvation.  We are invited to put away our "to do" lists and enter into the embrace of God. He will love us into what He wants us to do.  I smell the fresh air of His Spirit as it breathes into my soul the truth.  Love is what He asks.....

     Love the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

©copyright:  2008 Julie L. Todd