The Stairway to Heaven

Proverbs 9 and Mark 5:35-end (click here and here for the readings)

Although am 45 very soon, there is still a part of me that remembers what it is like to be a wild student. I remember the time of being able to make immediate decisions to do daft things - normally involving too much alcohol and staying awake far too late and laughing far too loudly. I remember the kind of abandonment based on the idea that there were no consequences to my decisions. I felt untouchable, totally free from responsibility.

I can remember too the day I gave up my job to travel for a while. Again the sense of freedom was amazing - no ties, just what I owned on my back and the cash in my pocket and lots of empty time to fill.

These times were great in their way. But the truth is that I after a while I got bored. The emptiness of the diary became an emptiness of purpose and I began to hunger for something of worth to do. I can remember seeing people who seemed to have chosen this uncommitted "freedom" as a way of life. I found them frightening. Most often they looked quite haggard - self indulgence had become their means of filling the empty hours. It looked and felt like they had fallen in to a trap. This is the same trap the the writer of Proverbs is warning us against.

The famous Led Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven" has the line:

"There are 2 paths you can go down but in the long run

There's still time to change the road you're on"

I think this is a dangerous fallacy. The reality is that the choices we make day by day shape who we are and become. It gets harder and harder to change as we rehearse day in and day out the choices we make. I am thankful for the freedom I enjoyed but I am more thankful that it left with a quest for meaning and purpose - I am thankful that after a while such things became boring because without that experience it would have been harder for me to try to search for the truth. I am thankful that God in His Graciousness did not let go but kept within me a hunger for something more, something that can be only be found in Him.

I still feel that urge for freedom within, but I hope that I have learned that it cannot be satisfied with the next indulgence or new time-filler. I pray that I have learned that true freedom is the freedom to want more of God without fear, because in Him there is always more to grow into.