Burning Bridges

In the previous posts, I discussed some reasons why we don’t permanently DWELL in God’s safe shelter. We want to have God’s protection, but we don’t want to give up the freedom to pursue our own agenda.

Our local homeless shelter will allow alcoholics and drug addicts to stay at the shelter as long as they stay sober. In the summer months, most of them choose to camp out in tents in a certain part of our town. They are free to indulge in their addictions and diversions. In the winter, when the temperatures get bitterly cold, they will leave their tents behind and go to the homeless shelter. 

We all prefer to come and go as we please—so that we can still follow our agenda. We prefer to use God as an emergency shelter, not a permanent home. We would rather live in the tents we put up ourselves than move in with God and live under His values and standards.

Here are a few examples of self-created shelters: money, jobs, education, influence, relationships, health, accomplishments, intelligence, beauty, talents, etc.

How can we DWELL in God’s protective shelter? First of all, we have to TRUST him completely…and not rely on any other worldly, self-created shelters. We can’t keep all our options open.

I’m reminded of these verses from an old hymn:

‘The world behind me, the cross before me…no turning back.”

Well, sometimes…the only way NOT to turn back…is to burn the bridges behind us. We have to have nothing to fall back…we have to burn our tents so that we are not tempted to go back to these self-created shelters.