The Little Foxes

I glanced out of the window at the lovely day and was reminded I’d put some washing in the washing machine hours ago. To my surprise the washing machine was still humming and its lights were flashing. After a few attempts to restart, a few bangs and shakes to no avail, the ‘Jim’ll fix it’ mode came into play. I lifted off the back thinking it was a broken belt. But it wasn’t. Was it a blocked filter? No. Maybe it was the pump. There I found the culprit. It was a penny coin which had jammed the pump. “That’s something!” I thought out loud, “an expensive machine with all its mod cons stopped by a penny”.

It’s a parable for sure. How many of God’s masterpieces have been stopped from fulfilling their destiny by something small. I thought of my own life and the years wasted, after I was born again, just keeping a pew warm. I was humming songs, but doing nothing of Kingdom value. I was stuck, just like that washing machine. I couldn’t move on.

There were so many attempts to restart, after many, many bangs on the pulpit from well meaning preachers. But I wasn’t moving. I was stuck firmly by little things. As an adult I had trivialised my seemingly insignificant childhood traumas and experiences, yet they were keeping me barren and unfruitful, and inactive. No matter how many times I sang ‘Satan has no authority here’ it seemed he had all the authority he needed to keep me stuck, held fast by unforgivenness and judgements.

The vows I’d made, the lies I’d believed about God and myself, and the ungodly covenants my fore-fathers had made all kept me a prisoner to the past. I was indeed barren and unfruitful in my knowledge of Jesus Christ. I was short sighted, even spiritually blind, oblivious to the truth that Jesus had forgiven me for my past sins and had come to heal my brokenness, and to set this prisoner free, enabling me to take up my responsibility of confirming my calling and election (see 2 Peter 1:8-11).

We read in the apostle Peter’s second letter ‘Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives’ (2 Peter 3:11). But it was only as I put the forgiveness key in the door and I begun to let Jesus in, with all His glorious light, and healing power, that I discovered Jesus had already opened the prison door. I could venture out and learn to live as a son of God, and begin to discover the privileges and promises and rights that are mine as an adopted son.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord Jesus, for the finished work of the cross in which everything I need for life and godliness has been given to me, in my knowledge of You. Thank You, Lord, for raising up Ellel Ministries to bring the truth, and teaching me my need to appropriate what was provided for me by the work of the cross. I pray that many more of Your people, who sit in the darkness which I sat in, will encounter the light. I pray they may learn how to appropriate your provision, continually allowing Your light in them to expose the little foxes that spoil the vines. Amen.