Boxes

You’ve spent your whole life putting things into boxes, keeping order and controlling all that comes your way. In the middle of your table sits a box. You’ve carried that box to college and to your first apartment. When you got married you brought it with you. Your spouse and kids don’t know what is inside and now it has just become part of the house, a fixture. When visitors come they see it and think it’s odd that a pine box would sit in the middle of your table, the place where you break bread and share hearts. It is always in the way and you wonder why you even keep it anymore. No one asks what is in there, no one wants to be rude. It never moves. You get angry the few times a year when you have to dust it off because it is a reminder of what is inside. Better left in the box, better left forgotten, better silenced, better left for dead. You wonder, is it dead yet? You broke its legs and shaved off its hair and starved it so it would fit into your box nicely. It fit perfectly, you’re in control.

She stood there staring at it. Her kids were grown and out of the house and her husband was away for the day. Looking over her shoulder, she nudged the box. No movement. Slowly she lifted off the lid and there she found it just as she left it, the broken Lamb of God, tucked perfectly into the box she had designed for it. The walls of the box were high enough and the lid tight enough to keep it contained. As she lifted the Lamb into her arms, He healed before her eyes and spoke to her heart. I’ve been here for years. I’ve been waiting for you to open the box. I knew you would. You built the box to bury the god you believed Me to be. In the pain of your thinking you made Me less so you could be more. We missed so many moments together. You thought I was the thing that was whispered into your ear and you believed it until you could no longer see me for who I AM. You broke Me down into what you thought was manageable and turned Me into a small, distant and powerless god. My grace is wide and my power is endless. In this dance we are about to share, let Me lead. Let me spin you around and around until I take you back to when you were a child in your backyard spinning in circles looking at the clouds. Let me spin you like I did then, before you decided to bring fear and control between us, before you put Me in the box and left Me to die. As we dance and run through the fields together let Me remind you that I am the beginning and there is no end to the love I bring. Hand over your fear. Hand over the smallness of your thinking. Hand over your walls. I will walk through the walls of your soul and bring you life. I will go as far as you will let Me go. Open your mind and open your heart and remove the boundaries of your fear. Let Me be the lover of your soul. Let’s fill up the box. Let’s put the control that changes the atmosphere and limits the glory of relationship into the box. Let’s put fear that diminishes power and freedom in the box. The pain you suffered, that you believed justified your choice to idolize control and convinced you to partner with fear, let’s put it into the box. Seal it up and follow Me. As they walked into the garden, there was a cross with an altar before it. Jesus took the box and placed it at the foot of the cross. He cried out to Father and said, “Not My will but Yours be done.” He showed her the scars in His hands and at that moment she knew that He understood pain and suffering beyond her own. He endured it willingly so that He could teach us about perfect love, a love that has no control or fear or shame. She looked down at the box and she watched it decay and decompose and turn into dust. When the Holy Spirit arrived, the remnants were stirred up and blown to the ends of the earth. And they danced and she twirled and she smiled as He led.