Never Eat Shredded Wheat

“The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” Romans 8:6 NIV

My daughters were not blessed with any degree of navigational ability. I used the saying “Never Eat Shredded Wheat” to get them to learn the ordinal directions, north, east, south, and west from our house. It failed. Jordyn could not find her way home if her life depended on it. She would just drive until she saw something she recognized and sometimes that took a while, she never took the time to memorize the route. How she got to work and school is a mystery. Aly was her own version of lost. Until an embarrassingly late age if you asked her to point north she would point up, like at the ceiling. She is now a teacher.

I have been reminded the past few weeks that people can be all sorts of confused when it comes to directions, but most specifically in which way to go in life. We all will face a decision to choose good vs evil. Choose and accept Jesus as your savior – good. Any other direction – not so much. However, I think it is not this decision that we over evaluate, it is everything else.

When we accept Jesus and His perfect grace we are not handed a list of answers to the myriad of options we will face in life. Actually, it is just the opposite. We can go in any direction. Which job? Either. Which car? Either. Which investment? Either. Which house? Either. We drive ourselves crazy trying to find a perfect path through free will when, in fact, it does not exist. Perfection here is fleeting and temporary.

Some of the people in my life seem to be washed in freedom. Every day is new. Others fall into a category filled with second guessing themselves. Every day is filled with opportunities to doubt that they have lived up to a standard that no one can reach. We can be so confounded by freedom that we can be imprisoned by it.

I am sitting in a hotel after a day of work and I did not yet know what I was going to write about and right on que I got a phone call from my nephew. I have written about him before. He is the one in prison – number 88170. I do not know of a time where prison has felt free to him. But prison during a pandemic has been even worse. If you want to talk to me about the fact that prison is not supposed to be an enjoyable place, let’s do that later. He is still human.

The entire prison was on lock down for 8 months. People go crazy in isolation in far less time. He has earned his way to a level that allows him to call. It is insanely expensive, but he does so once in a while. He needs to hear a voice. I tell him I love him and I pray for him. For the period of time in lock down, he was not allowed to call. Human contact was literally eliminated. At one point I received a box of his belongings with no note. I actually thought he had died. When I finally heard his voice again a couple of weeks ago he did not sound good. Frantic.

After Jordyn died, he wrote me a letter. He told me that in his mind I had just been sentenced. Now imprisoned by something I could not change, the only way I would be able to get through it was one day at a time, just like prison. Thinking about a sentence in its totality will drive you crazy. Tonight, he sounded a little better, even though he has no path to physical freedom.

He told me that the reason he was struggling so much is that he made a mistake. He had allowed his mind to become free. Prison routine never changes and he grew comfortable. In it he had learned to just make it one day at a time. When that routine was removed, he said he could feel his mind get re-confined. In an atmosphere void of any freedom he had learned to grasp what little he had. In my life and in most of yours, void of prison, we have unfortunately learned to grasp what little confinement we can find.

North, east, south or west – go in God’s freedom.

Make decisions. Which car? Either. Which job? Either. Which either? Either. Accept grace, but then live in it.

Challenge: Let yourself out of prison. Asking God for direction is essential but assigning eternal amounts of consequence to temporary conditions does not make sense.

Rick Claiborn