Caged by life

Have you ever felt caged up by your own pace of life?

My wife and I met on the road. We spent a year traveling around the US and Canada doing youth events. We traveled in a truck. It was a duly crew cab F-350 with a 36 foot racing trailer behind it full of sound and lighting equipment. We were like a youth rally in a really big box. We would pull in set up do programing for a weekend or a week, then load back up and drive to the next place. We did 60 events in that year with a month off for thanksgiving and Christmas. So as you can imaging we were pretty busy. Everything that we owned and wanted to bring with us had to fit in a locker and suitcase. I brought the biggest most massive bag you have ever scene thinking I would need all those clothes. A couple of months in I realized all I really wanted with me was a small duffel bag with enough clothes for a week. We also lived on room and board provided for us by the host church or school we were staying with. The only money that come to us was about $70 a month. It was such simple living and we saw the provision of God everywhere we went. It was an amazing year.

Noah had a completely different kind of year. Did you realize that it was a full year that Noah and his family were in that ark. Now that's a big boat and all but a whole year with all of those animals. Gen 8 finally put the time line together in my head. Some how they had all that they needed for that year. We don't hear about any of the 8 people aboard not making it. So God must have provided everything for them and all those animals for a whole year before they got on the boat.

I can just imagine the freedom that they finally felt when the got out of that boat. When they began to walk on solid ground again. It must have felt like you were really stretching for the very first time in a year. It is no wonder to me that they first thing that Noah does is build an alter and offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to God. They made it!!! the survived!!! They were free once more.

Freedom is something we just don't really understand until it is taken away. I have never been in prison. I have never been persecuted for my faith. I have never been locked inside a boat for a year. But I do know what the cage of a busy schedule feels like. There just isn't enough time in the day to get done everything that we need to do. I feel this way as the school year is starting again.

Youth ministry calms down a little in the summer. Kids are running all over everywhere with their families and they really don't connect with church a whole lot. It gives me time to think, read, plan, study, and prepare for the school year. Yet when the school year hits, I still don't feel ready.

Have you felt this? This containment of schedule and the busy life? Where do we go for relief?

It seems to me that God is still there and he is still providing. Just as he did for Noah in the boat and my team in the truck. I believe that in the same way that God provided for Noah's physical needs he also gave him peace of mind on the year in the boat. A peace that passes all understanding is what Jesus is offering. When I slow down long enough to read, to pray, to think through things enough to write this blog. I find that God is still there providing peace of mind and freedom in the midst of a caging, busy schedule.

Have you taken time for God's provision of peace today?