On the Most Common Form

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On the Most Common Form of Modern Slavery

I was graced by the understanding of slavery granted me as I toured Mount Vernon. The enormity of the crime overwhelmed me. And as Franklin cogently notes below, physical, obvious slavery is only scratching the surface of the horror.

The most common form of slavery today as in the past are the shackles that we embrace. We put them on willingly and we are utterly reluctant to remove them. In fact, we do all that we can to preserve these shackles inviolate--the shackles of Sin.

C.S. Lewis had a wonderful description of the difficulty of removing these in The Great Divorce, A man is seen by a friend to have a lizard companion. When the Angelic friend asks him to give up the lizard there is a long struggle which ends only when the man says something like, "Take it quickly, do away with it before I change my mind." That is what sin is--it is behavior that has grown into habit, into character, and finally into addiction. We fear withdrawal, we fear the emptiness of its absence, so we gladly tighten the chains and shackles around us.

As we enter into Advent, it is a good time to consider the evils we have grown into--evils that have acquired our shape as a well-worn couch--evils that we have settled into and now give no notice. They may be small, they may be enormous, but they are always all-encompassing. We cannot give them up. Or so we think. But we turn to Jesus and gazing at Him, taking one step at a time, we CAN and will walk away from them. His grace makes it possible. His grace makes it necessary. His blood is the price paid so that we may walk away from the "fleshpots" of Egypt and enter the true land of "Milk and Honey." What a shame if His purchase is not received in full in the Kingdom of Heaven. Better to wear His yoke, than the one that we no longer even see.

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This page contains a single entry by Steven Riddle published on December 1, 2002 5:03 PM.

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