I look around me and I see captives -- prisoners, bound to something in this life.
At times this does not bother them.
It's become a way of life, something they see no need to be free of.

For others, their bonds are a trap, a prison they can't let go of no matter how hard they try.

We're all captives to something.
I realized that this past week as I looked around me at friends and family and strangers...at myself. We can all name a prison that holds us captive.
I once wrote a blog post about being captive (here) and it hit me again. Just looking around me, I saw how true it is that we are all captive.

Captive to cigarettes or drugs or booze or sex or the next high. Captive to jobs, or a certain social status, or a type of a car or money or buying the best. Captive to friends or a relationship or social media or a phone or a certain clothing style. Captive to mental illness, a dream, a hope, a fear. Captive to a lie, to Satan, to a cult, a church, a certain style of life. Captive to circumstance you were born into, captive to your mind, to food, to not being able to let go. Captive to bitterness, to not wanting to forgive. Captive to hate to rage and to pain.

We're all captives. We can all name something that holds power over us, that pulls us down, that won't let go even if we tried.
And most of the time, there doesn't seem to be a point to trying.
So we don't
and we give up
and we drown.

But I want to say something today.
I want to say here and now, that I don't want to be captive. I don't want anything to hold me back from my purpose. I don't want to be a slave, to be controlled by something that truly holds no real power over me.
God has given us freedom, yet we stand in the shadows of the world.

People say Christianity is a prisoner.
But I say it's my saving Grace.
It's the only thing I've ever found that offers forgiveness and Grace and freedom. God does not ask that I become a robot to His wishes, but a follower of my free will. He doesn't ask I become His prisoner but His friend, walking alongside me no matter what darkness may shadow me.
The world doesn't offer that.
And if it does, it always fails me.
But my God never has.
He never will.
I believe that, and that is why I refuse to be a captive and why I refuse to not blog about freedom even in the pain and darkness.
Why I'm sorry sometimes my posts get too dark and extremely personal.
But why I stand here today and say that I refuse to be a captive.

So let's not be captives darling.
Let us rise like we were made to do.

We've been prisoners too long.
Let's be free.
Let's not depend on anything else.
Let's not let anything become more than Who is truly dependable, who walks with us, who doesn't ask more of us than to follow, to be forgiven, to trust, to feel His peace.

You're free darling.
Act like it.