There Once Was A Gull..

I kept wondering why most of the sea gulls had only one leg: a stump very much like a pirate’s wooden leg. I watched for days as these gulls would hobble along the beach, trying to balance their barrel of a body on only one full foot. Their stump would try to find a shift in the dunes just at the right place in order to create balance. These gulls couldn’t even run for the takeoff. They somehow had adapted to simply lifting their wings and taking off from their stance.

On one of the last days at the beach, I sat watching in horror as a gull landed with both feet tangled together in fishing wire. It must have been fairly recent. He could barely walk, hobbling with little leverage. I ran back with bread to try to lure him so I could break his chains. I saw what would come of him: losing at least one of his legs. Only I could save him with the proper intervention. I couldn’t do anything for the seagull and I felt horrible, sad, and powerless.

Sometimes we don’t even see the fishing wire that we’ve naturally wrapped around our spiritual legs. Sometimes we don’t even feel the effect of our slowness, our prison. What a sorry sight we must be sometimes- barely getting by with years of guilty and innocent wire impeding our forward motion. We naturally throw ourselves in traps. Sometimes we do it because the rest of the flock leads us there, sometimes because we’re simply stupid.

Only Jesus can cut the bonds of your sins. Imagine the freedom! Imagine the ability to fly with both legs free. What if we quite being skeptical and fearful of His help- what if we simply surrendered to it? I ask many questions because I want you to imagine things from a different perspective. Of course it’s hard to imagine a life without chains if that’s all you’ve known.

Don’t turn away!

~Author: Sarah A. Miller, MA at Miller Counseling Services, PC