Today I was thinking about balloon creatures. You know, the crazy creatures a clown makes. Sometimes you can get them made into hats at carnivals and county fairs.
You can get a balloon made into just about anything. I've gotten balloon dogs, balloon flowers, balloon hats…and I was watching a movie the other day where a guy made a bicycle out of balloons. Pretty impressive.
Then I started thinking about those poor balloons. Sure, I know they don't have feelings. They don't feel it when they are twisted and contorted into any number of odd creations. They don't care that' they're being manipulated and bent to someone's will. But I still felt sorry for them.
Then I started thinking, what if I was like that? What if I were being twisted into some odd creation by some random dude, who was only doing it for his own enjoyment or to entertain others? Don't think I'd like it very much.
But isn't that what satan tries his best to do? He tries so hard to bend us and twist us into something else, for his own enjoyment and entertainment. He certainly doesn't do it because he has our best interests at heart. He twists, bends and ties us off into something unrecognizable…if we let him.
The good news is that we don't have to let him. We aren't without power. We aren't without say-so. When satan starts that mess, we only have to utter one word: Jesus. That's all it takes to make that clown run, screaming for his mommy. The name of Jesus makes him weak and causes him to shake where he stands.
The bad news is that sometimes we forget this. We forget that we have power through Jesus Christ. We forget that all we have to do is call on His name and all of hell shakes. All we have to do is say to the mountain, "Move!" and it does.
How can we forget that? What makes us forget? Perhaps it's just the busy-ness of life. We get caught up in the day-to-day, and the thought gets pushed aside. How sad for us.
There are those people who don't understand faith and obedience who would say that as Christians, we are being bent, shaped and tied according to God's will, much like a balloon animal. The argument is that we are mindless minions who get no say-so in what happens to them; we merely "do God's will."
But here's what they miss: obedience is not about getting molded into whatever someone else wants. God intended that our walk of faith be an adventure, motivated by our love for Christ and our desire to please Him. Obedience is about discovering God, not about avoiding consequences. God intended obedience to be a journey taken one step at a time. For each step we take in obedience, we are blessed by God. We can then take another step. And more blessings follow.
Sometimes, we think we need to back off from obedience because it seems safe to do so; but in so doing we deprive God of the opportunity to demonstrate His awesome power in and through us. We must remember James 2:17, which reminds us that faith without works is dead. In other words, we cannot have unshakeable faith without obeying.
Here's the thing: obedience does not lead to being tied up in knots. It leads to steadfast faith. Think Noah…Paul…Abraham…Daniel in the lion's den. All of these men obeyed and it led to steadfast and unshakeable faith.
No balloon critters needed.
