Way of Escape
Date: March 14th, 2021
Canvas: 18” x 24”
Cost: $250
With every trial God has provided for you a way of escape that will bring you out of it victoriously. —1st Corinthians 10:13
Doug Glynn, a pastor at Hope Covenant Church, spoke about the troubles we all face, and how our brains react with unhealthy impulses, and how frustrating this is when we’ve worked so hard to surrender our lives to God. We ask ourselves, ‘ I can’t stop [fill in the blank]. Does this mean I am just messed up beyond hope?.’ But, Doug explained that the impulse itself doesn’t mean anything about our identity; it is merely an experience we are having at the moment.
For many years my initial reaction to impulses has been a medley of fear, anger, shame. I thought God was angry at me for this, but I learned that Jesus took my disorder into himself on the cross in order to give me an entirely new identity: Christ. Ok, that sounds completely arrogant, but the Bible backs it up. 2nd Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Our natures were fused together on the cross forever and nothing can separate us.
During the song service, I got the idea of mountain climbers swinging on a rope, but I wasn’t sure if it was too literal. Moments later “mountains” came up in the lyrics of the song being sung and that was all I needed! We all get paralyzed with fear on that cliff. But, one daring way of escape is to grab the rope and swing over to our team: to talk to a trusted friend or counselor. So we can hear them say to us, “I see you as God sees you: a new creation in Christ.”