Loving the Fence

Thoughts on the Sabbath School Lesson for 12.8.12

Have you ever seen those dogs who can go outside with their people and they don’t need a leash or a fence? They just stay right in their yard or beside their person. We had a dog like that once. He was a border collie and his name was Shadow. He knew exactly where our (unfenced) yard stopped and didn’t stray from it unless he was walking beside one of us. It was a beautiful thing. Many years later my family owned a beautiful Boxer named Bach. He didn’t understand the concept of “yard.” He understood running, everywhere.

Well, after trying to teach him the boundaries of our yard, we read about something called an invisible fence. Have you ever heard of it? It consists of a length of wire that is attached to a transformer much like a regular electrified fence, except that the wire is buried. The dog then wears a collar that has a little sensor on it that will give the dog a shock when he gets near the wire. The idea is that the dog will learn to stay away from the wire to avoid the shock and learn the boundaries of the area in which he is allowed to run.

Yeah, well, that didn’t work for Bach. I’m sure there are lots of dogs who have lived their lives successfully within their invisible fence, but not Bach. Oh sure, he didn’t like the shock that he would get when he crossed the wire, but he learned very quickly (so we knew he wasn’t completely stupid) that the shock only lasted a couple of seconds and then he was free on the other side. So, if he saw something outside his “yard,” like the little neighbor girl calling him, he’d take a running start and take the shock. Now coming back home was more of a challenge. Once we’d go get the leash and fetch him home, he seemed to know exactly where the wire boundary was and would whimper and resist going back over the same wire he gladly took the shock from a few minutes before. We still have the wire and transformer if anybody’s interested.

Anyway, so we finally had to actually fence in our backyard. You’d think Bach would have been satisfied – he had a full fenced acre where he could romp and chase things – but no. We had to sneak out the front door and make sure it was always closed tightly behind us because he never stopped trying to run out the front door. Bringing groceries was a challenge.

The weird thing was, he really wasn’t interested in running away so much because if you left him alone and the front door open, pretty soon he’d come back in. If you tried to encourage him to come back in before he was ready, on the other hand, he’d run farther away…he loved to be chased. (Infuriating)

Anyway, later in his life he discovered that he could dig his way under our chain link fence and escape that way. (Who ever thought an 85 lb. dog would be able to dig under a fence?) We spent a lot of time finding and filling in his escape holes.

The funny thing was, he almost always escaped from our yard into another fenced lot. He thought he was free, but he was still fenced in. He just wasn’t in his own yard anymore.

I miss Bach even though he was an infuriating dog, but I learned some important lessons from his Houdini like behavior.

1. There are boundaries everywhere, even if we can’t see them.

2. The boundaries were put there to keep us safe and happy.

3. Things outside of our boundaries will call to us.

4. Getting outside our boundaries sometimes takes quite a bit of work.

5. Being outside our boundaries is often not as much fun as we thought it would be. 

6. Sometimes, when we think we’re free, we’re just fenced in as we were before but by a different set of boundaries.

7. Coming back home sometimes seems more painful than leaving.

8. No matter how many times we escape, Someone will always be looking for us. He may not chase us, but His door will always be open for us to come home.

God gave us a set of boundaries, the Ten Commandments. From everything I’ve heard and read, God, Himself lives within the boundaries set by the Ten Commandments along with all of Heaven. 

“The law of God is the foundation of his Government in Heaven and in earth, …” (E.G. White, Signs of the Times, March 30, 1888, graph 7)

Doesn’t that mean that the same rules God gave us here on earth apply to Heaven as well? What if we don’t like the rules? If we feel trapped by them here, wouldn’t we feel trapped by them there? I say yes, what about you?

Although we know that our entrance into Heaven is not dependent on our ability to keep the Ten Commandments, our enjoyment of Heaven is.

“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” 1 John 5:2-3

“His commandments are not grievous.” Hm, That’s kind of the same as saying, we won’t hate them, right? Well, the writers of the Psalms go even farther than that.

“And I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved. My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes.” Psalm 119:47-48

Can you honestly claim that you delight in God’s commandments? Are you like my dog, Bach, always trying to find a way over, under or through the fences that God has placed around us for our own safety and protection? 

God has shown us the boundaries of Heaven. Jesus died to make sure that anyone who wants to can live within those boundaries with Him. 

The Ten Commandments give us a picture of Heaven – a place where sin does not exist, where Satan can no longer touch us, and where we’ll be able to talk with Jesus face to face.

“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life. For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.” John 3:16-17AMP

Freedom through Bondage

Thoughts on the Sabbath School Lesson dated 11.12.11

Wait … what?  That just sounds wrong, doesn’t it?  Aren’t we supposed to be free enough to do whatever we want…and now we’re supposed to believe that the way to find true freedom is to submit to being restrained?

Elton Trueblood in an article called “The New Man for Our Time” that was published in Christianity Today says it this way:  

“We have not advanced very far in our spiritual lives if we have not encountered the basic paradox of freedom, to the effect that we are most free when we are bound.”[1]

Jesus said something very similar: 

“‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’”  Matthew 11:28-30

How do you think that works?  I have a theory.  I think that even though we think we want to be free of all restraining rules and regulation, that’s not what we really want.  I can remember, before I had children, that playpens were terrible things.  They were baby cages, in my very young mind.  Then I had children and quickly realized that some relatively simple boundaries freed both my baby and me.  The baby was free to entertain himself without getting into dangerous territory and I was free to do what I needed to do.

At about the same time, I heard a psychologist explain one of the paradoxes of childhood:  children spend a substantial amount of time pushing the boundaries placed around them by their parents, teachers, and any other adults in their lives, but what they’re really doing is making sure that the boundaries are there and secure.  A child with no rules is an unhappy child.

Picture a long hallway with lots of doors on either side.  All the doors are closed and locked.  Running down the hallway is a child who tries to open every door; he (or she) tries to turn all the doorknobs, wiggles all the doors, knocks and bangs on them.  To someone watching it looks like the child is trying to break out, but in reality, he’s making sure that he can’t.

Does that make sense?  Satan makes us think that what we really want is total and complete freedom to behave in any way we want to, but that’s not what we want at all. 

“In The Mennonite Brethren Herald (2-19-99), Jim Holm writes: ‘When I was in third grade, I was condemned to live under a law—the law of near-sightedness. My eyes went bad, and today I am considered legally blind.
“‘I am not free. I am in bondage to this law. Do I like it? No, I hate it. But it doesn't matter. There is no escape.
“‘But one day I discovered there was an even greater law that can overcome the law of near-sightedness. It is called the law of corrective lenses, or the law of glasses. I discovered that when I submitted myself to the law of corrective lenses, the law of near-sightedness was overcome. Did it go away? No, it is still there. But it was overpowered by a greater law, which enabled me to see.
“‘Now here is the ironic thing: When I submit to the law of glasses, I become free. That's crazy. You would think if I want to be free, I should throw the glasses away. But I've been there, done that. I know what that is like. That is not freedom. Only by submitting to the law of glasses do I become free.’”[2]

If you’ve ever had to wear glasses or contacts, you can identify with Mr. Holm.  We sometimes feel irritated by always having to wear glasses or contacts, but if you’ve ever had to go without them for more than a few minutes, you quickly realize how much more freedom you have when you wear them.

Here’s a more dramatic illustration from Colin Campbell:  

“Freedom does not mean the absence of constraints or moral absolutes. Suppose a skydiver at 10,000 feet announces to the rest of the group, ‘I'm not using a parachute this time. I want freedom!’
“The fact is that a skydiver is constrained by a greater law--the law of gravity. But when the skydiver chooses the ‘constraint’ of the parachute, she is free to enjoy the exhilaration.
“God's moral laws act the same way: they restrain, but they are absolutely necessary to enjoy the exhilaration of real freedom.”[3]

You know, that sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?  Can you imagine someone even considering jumping out of an airplane without a parachute…on purpose?  That’s suicidal!  And yet, we kick and strain against God’s Law as though it were not saving us from the pain and grief that sin brings.

 

Mr. Trueblood from our first quote  has more to say on this subject:  

“But not just any way of being bound will suffice; what matters is the character of our binding.
“The one who would like to be an athlete, but who is unwilling to discipline his body by regular exercise and by abstinence, is not free to excel on the field or the tracks. His failure to train rigorously and to live abstemiously denies him the freedom to go over the bar at the desired height, or to run with the desired speed and endurance.
“With one concerted voice the giants of the devotional life apply the same principle for the whole of life with the dictum: Discipline is the price of freedom.”[4]

Real freedom is learning how to be ruled by the law of heaven.  James, who by the way calls himself a servant (someone bound) of God, tells us that 

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”  James 1:17

The Law, in spite of what the vast majority of the world says, is a “good and perfect gift” from our Heavenly Father who loves us beyond anything we can understand.  God’s Law is our playpen…it’s not keeping us in so much as it’s keeping us safe from the lies and tricks of the enemy.

“The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.  The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart.  The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the LORD are firm, and all of them are righteous.  They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.” Psalm 19: 7-10

---

[1] David Elton Trueblood in The New Man for Our Time. Christianity Today, Vol. 37, no. 1.

[2]Jim Holm, The Mennonite Brethren Herald (2-19-99)

[3] Colin Campbell in Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker), from the editors of Leadership.

[4] David Elton Trueblood, The New Man for our Time, Harper Collins, (January 1970)