"Take the Shackles Off My Feet"

We at Cottonwood are preparing to begin our 5th year of Celebrate Recovery next week. As preparation, I had the opportunity to share some things about CR last week. In a few posts, I will share a few thoughts. 

Shackles

There is a song I really like, with a chorus that says, “Take the shackles off my feet so I can dance.” I was thinking about that song a few weeks ago. The cry of this song is, “I want to dance. God, I hear the music, and I want to do dance, but I have these shackles. Would you take the shackles off so I can dance?

The goal is the dance. The goal is not to have the shackles removed. That is just the necessary step to become free enough to dance.

Interesting thing about shackles, they are portable. Shackles are the chains that connect the feet. They don’t keep you confined, but they limit your movement. I was thinking that, for some people, shackles are an improvement. Imagine someone in maximum security prison, solitary confinement, only allowed to leave his cell once a day, locked up for 23 hours every day, never leaving a small area. One day, he has to go to court, so the guard unlocks his cell and escorts him out, but he puts shackles on his feet.  The prisoner is then taken out of the prison, into fresh air, is able to see the sun, able to ride in a car, walk in a hallway, see new faces, hear the sounds of the city. This must feel like freedom, but, then he is wearing shackles.   He can walk, but his feet are chained together, so he cant get too far, and he cant dance. He is a little bit free, but no totally.  He is not completely free and he knows it.

I believe that many Christians are like those prisoners, out of prison, experiencing some freedom, but still walking around in shackles, and unable to dance.

The vision for CR is that we all need to be dancing. We want to help remove shackles so we can dance.

I want to love the Lord with abandon, to follow him without holding back anything, to live a life that is full, abundant, joyful, radical, with whimsy and fun, also purposeful and productive.  I want that kind of life for all of us. I want to see us all free. Free from any and every kind of shackle. Free from addiction, alcoholism, depression, worry, fears, anxiety, phobias…free from boredom, free from legalism, free from passivity, free from humdrum, freely living that life of joyful abundance.