Castles and wastelands

Did You come that we might just survive?

Did You come so we could just get by?

And did You walk among us

so we might merely limp along beside?

I was bound, I have been set free

But I have settled for apathy

And did You come to make me new

and know I'd crawl right back into the skin You found me in?

It's where I am, not where I've been...

I absolutely love trying new things. However, like most people I'm still a creature of habit, and if I'm being honest I'm not that willing to get creative with the things I absolutely love. Which is why whenever I'm in a bookstore, the self-improvement mumbo-jumbo section is unfailingly where I can be found.

That's exactly where I found its intriguing little spine. It was a book with a title something along the lines of "The Stages of Life" (though I don't remember who by). If mumbo-jumbo is nothing else, it's entertaining; so like most titles in that section, it piqued my curiosity, and I found myself quickly pulling it off the shelf with an objective hmm. Flipping over to the back cover, I read as the author chronologically listed the stages to be expected throughout the typical American adult life: College. Marriage. Divorce. Re-marriage. Retirement...

Excuse me, author ma'am, but I think you forgot "File bankruptcy" and "Get cancer". I indignantly shoved the handheld excuse for intelligence back in its designated place and moved on to some other book that likely wasn't any more of a reputable source of whatever it was talking about. 

But even the smallest, most laughable text can leave an indelible impression. If you know me, you won't be surprised when I told you I couldn't help seeing the deeper issue.

I'm afraid that the book's "eh, ish happens" attitude is all to prevalent. What did that say about the attitude of our culture? 

To the majority of the world, there is nothing alarming about the approach of the book I found that day; many would have considered its approach to life's expectations and advice on how to deal with them entirely sound. But as Christians, we're told there is another way. A better way. And yet, from these consequences, we don't always find ourselves excluded.

Christ came so that we could not only have life, but have it more abundantly (John 10:10). Why is it, then, that so many of us are only partially free? Free from pretenses... free from regarding debt as something we'll always have... free from having places in our minds where we don't allow ourselves to go. Some of us have photo albums we leave undusted; cobwebs we shame others into not exposing.

You get along. I mean, you'd get along even better if it weren't for people trying to disturb the caveats of your inner joy with blog posts, but other than that, you're fine. 

There's such a better way.

"Every man dies. Not every man really lives." 

-William Wallace

Open your closet. Choose freedom. Skeleton's don't bite; they're dead.

Why would a young man live in a wasteland

when the castle of his dreams is standing by?

Why would princess put on an old dress

to dance with her beloved, and a chance to catch his eye?

You make me want to LIVE...