I'm not a huge movie guy, but I am pretty excited for the upcoming release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (TMNT Trailer #1). Being a 90's kid, the Turtles bring me back to some of my favorite childhood things like TMNT pajamas and the coolest action figures in school. So, I obviously loved the first TMNT movie from Paramount Films, and I'm pretty stoked for the second one.

So, for reminiscence sake, these are some of my favorite TMNT toys ever made:

• The Technodrome
• The Turtlecopter
• And the best of all...The Pizza Thrower!

I have always been fascinated by turtles...especially turtles that eat pizza, ride skateboards, and say "Kawabunga, dude!", and were born out of the 90's. But the very idea of an animal that comes fully
equipped with a personal bomb shelter on its back is so sweet! When a turtle is threatened, or feels in danger, it is able retreat within its shell and find safety and a relative level of camouflage. This is amazing! Seriously, the way God has created turtles is so fascinating! Their ability to protect themselves is fascinating.

But too, often people act like turtles when it comes to their own emotional protection. In fact, I do this fairly often, as well. And this is not good. When turtles do it, it is good. When humans do this, it's not.

What do I mean? How do humans act like turtles?

I'll give you an example, but be nice to me. I'm going to be a little vulnerable with you here.

The other day, I was talking to a friend and he asked about how he could pray for me. And if I was being completely transparent, I would have told him about the multitude of burdens that were on my heart at that very moment. But if I had done that, I would have opened up the possibility of a few things:

• By sharing the actual burdens on my heart with him, he would have seen the mess I was in and would have plenty of chance to judge me and crushed my confidence.
• By sharing real prayer requests with him, I would have been reaching for the hope that my heart would be healed in a context that both of us shared...a hope that was easier crushed than realized.
• And by inviting him into the truth of my situation, I would have had to find a way to insert him into my life in the contexts of my burdens.

And if I am being honest, all of those things scared me. They scared me because it meant I would be opening up my heart to hope in a person I barely know to be there for me. And by doing this, I would take a huge step toward my hope being dashed and my joy being diminished.

So instead, I just told him some kind off vague prayer request like, "Pray for strength."

I acted just like a turtle. Because of my fear, I retreated within myself and avoided the freeing truth and sanctifying vulnerability. I hid behind the shell of vague "Christianese". And many of do this so much more than we realize. We all have pains and burdens. But we hide within ourselves, never finding freedom, because we are too scared.

And as the Lord has been speaking to me about this recently, he has been revealing to me the path to finding real freedom from these burdens and the pains in my heart. And I want to share them with you.

Here are 2 secrets to find lasting freedom from your pain and your burdens.

1) Come out of your shell. Be ok with the mess in your own heart. You're not alone in your mess! It's only when you are honest and at peace with your own mess than you can let someone else in and give you the real love that you need.

Allow me to let you in on the best-kept-secret of finding freedom: we can't find freedom by ourselves; we need another to help us as we search for freedom. In our pursuit of true freedom, real love from another person is a necessary ingredient. In order to enter the promised land called freedom, we must pass through the tunnel of real love. But this is where we tend to retreat into our shells. We are scared of receiving real love.

Why are we scared of receiving real love? Doesn't everyone want real love?

Receiving real, liberating love, requires that we come out of our shells, honestly admit our pain, and open up about our fears to another imperfect human being. It is only when we are vulnerable with another about our current reality that we can receive true love and find lasting freedom.

So why are we so scared to receive love and pursue freedom? Because we know the depths of our own hearts, and we are so scared to let someone else into it. We fear that they will see it and run the other way.

So we never find real freedom. Fear opposes love. And thus, it opposes freedom. We want freedom from our pains and burdens, but our fears tend to get in the way. This is why 1 John 4:18 says, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear..."

Love requires you to open up. Like a turtle coming out of a shell.

And love will bring you to a place called freedom...outside of the shell.

2) Jump into someone else's shell. Be courageous enough to love someone sacrificially...despite the mess in their heart, and despite the amount of times they retreat inside their shell away from you. Real love casts out fear. (1 John 4:18).

Anything else called "love" that is too scared to enter the dark realities of the human heart for another is not love at all. Love bears all things with and for another (1 Corinthians 13:7). Mushy feelings never do that. That's because love isn't a feeling. Love is a self-sacrificing, daily-deciding commitment to the holistic well-being of another without regard for personal safety.

You can only offer this kind of love to someone else by committing to sacrifice and unselfishness. And by giving this real love to someone else, you will bring them to a place called freedom...outside of their shell.

(P.S. Love is a two way street. When you are courageous enough to love someone else, you will begin to find love and healing for your own heart.)

So here's to you! Here's to starting the journey to finding lasting freedom from your pains and burdens! "Kawabunga, dude!"

(Just for fun, here is another trailer...becasue I couldn't resist...)

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Freedom.

We all want freedom. We want to be unchained, unbound, and unharnessed.

But freedom isn't what we often think it is. And it doesn't come from where we often think it comes from.

This is the definition of a paradox:

A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.

Often the concept of freedom can be a paradox. We think it seems obvious to understand, but the lived reality is actually the opposite of what we first thought. It is counter-intuitive.

Here are 3 paradoxes of freedom:

Paradox #1 - Freedom does not mean doing whatever you want. The thing we usually hear in our culture is that freedom means doing whatever you want to do. It means living it up without any restrictions. It means not listening to anybody tell you what to do. It means creating your own destiny. But this couldn't be further from the truth.

Imagine a sleek, new train moving down the tracks at top speed. It is exhilarating to watch. But if that train got it in its train mind (it that were possible) that it wanted to be like the tractors in the nearby field, and jumped the tracks to turn up the sod in the field, what would happen? It would get stuck. Is that train free, even though it did exactly what it wanted to do? No. Why? It wasn't made to go on the land. It was made to move down the tracks at top speeds.

Freedom does not mean doing whatever you want to do; it means doing what you were made to do. You will never find freedom from a wild, limitless pursuit of all kinds of pleasure. You will only end up dissatisfied, empty, and still wanting more. You will only ever find freedom when you begin to live your God-defined calling and when you find satisfaction from a personal relationship with Jesus. That is what you were made to do; that is what will give you true freedom.

Paradox #2 - You can be a slave to your misconception of freedom. The pursuit of greater and never-ending pleasure is capable of sucking you in and enslaving you. As stated above, you cannot find freedom from a wild, limitless pursuit of all kinds of pleasure. Why? It leaves you dissatisfied, empty, and still wanting more. Why? Because pleasure wasn't created to fill the God-sized void in your heart. It was merely meant to point you to an all-loving and good Creator.

Only Jesus can fill that void in your heart. And the more you run in circles, trying to find that perfect experience to set you free and the more you throw the shackles off and try to find your freedom on your own, the more you will become caught up in the pursuit of pleasure. When you look back, you will realize that you were sucked in and that you were indeed, enslaved. How can I be so confident? I have been there. I was a slave to my pursuit of the ever-elusive experience of freedom...until I got to know Jesus.

Paradox #3 - Our freedom isn't free. Much like the freedom enjoyed in the USA was not just handed over to us but earned through great sacrifice, our personal freedom was not free and isn't held onto easily. Jesus gave up everything to purchase our freedom for us (cf. Gal. 3:13, Col 1:14, 1 Tim. 2:6).

I think we often take this concept of freedom very lightly. After all, you shouldn't have to worry about anything when you're free, right? Not really... There is an enemy who hates us and wants to screw us over as much as he possibly can while he still exists. And there is no end to which he won't go to try to ruin this relationship we have with the Creator. It was bought with a great price, and sometimes it requires a great effort on our part to stay close to our Creator.

"Keep on working to complete your salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God working in you to help you to want to do - and to be able to do - what pleases him." Philippians 2:12-13

I was recently reading in John 1 about the Word that became flesh (Jesus). And John said something in beginning of the chapter that I haven't been able to get out of my head since. He said in John 1:17,

"For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ."

A slave only knows the Law. He only hears the voice of the Law - telling him he either succeeded or failed. He only feels the affirmation of the Law - what the Law keepers defined to be good or bad. It is slavery to be defined by the Law and the Law keepers - even if you are doing a good job!

But the free person knows something greater than the Law. The free person, knows Grace and Truth. The free person lives in Grace and Truth. The free person finds his affirmation in the unchanging Truth and lives with an unreasonable Grace. The free person might know the Law, but chooses to be defined by a reality that is far superior - a relationship with Jesus - the personification of Grace and Truth.

This sets him free.

Jesus sets him free.

For those of you struggling to be free, realize that your freedom comes from Jesus. You can't just fight the darkness around you. It doesn't work that way. You need to turn the light on. You need to turn to Jesus.

And in your journey of freedom, I would love to be an encouragement to you as much as I can! So drop me an email, or leave a comment below. I would love to get to know you and hear your story. Until then, God bless!

There are three main uses of the word "medicine":

1. any substance or substances used in treating disease or illness; medicament; remedy.

2. the art or science of restoring or preserving health or due physical condition, as by means of drugs, surgical operations or appliances, or manipulations: often divided into medicine proper, surgery, and obstetrics.

3. the art or science of treating disease with drugs or curative substances, as distinguished from surgery and obstetrics.

 

   Often, we like medicine to serve us in a way very much like the third use. We like it to treat our pain with drugs. We just want to forget about what is hurting us. Yes, it might be better to treat the actually cause, rather than the symptoms, but our first priority seems to be pain-removal. Problem-removal is usually a secondary goal of ours. Remove the pain, then let's talk about removing the actual problem.

 

   Unfortunately, this is how we often approach our emotional pain, too. We just want to forget about the pain. We won't go to the source of the pain until we are absolutely staring it in the face. But most of the time, we would rather just medicate our emotional pain with quick fixes. This Aspirin Generation is also an iPhone Generation. We just want something to help us forget about real life, and sometimes the pain it brings, without ever having to face the real issues and problems and monsters beneath the surface. We are scared not only of all the work it takes to discover what is wrong with us, but also the uncomfortable soul surgery it takes to fix those problems and destroy those monsters.

   But we will never grow and defeat our monsters if we are constantly medicating the symptoms of a tough life. No it is not wrong to play video games, read romance fiction, watch TV, party with friends, or spend time on Facebook or Pinterest; but if these things keep us from discovering the real issues in our life - and from discovering the person inside us - we never experience the amazing life God has for us. If we are constantly running from who we are, we will distance ourselves from God's amazing grace to live for him, no matter how broken he finds us.

Today, I got rid of my iPhone. I had been noticing how much it was a source of emotional aspirin for me. If I was feeling stressed, I would go on Facebook on it. If I was bored, I would play my FIFA 13 app. If I wanted to learn more about coffee, I would get another coffee app. Every time I needed healing, I would turn to it instead of to God and to my real life relationships. So, despite how fun and convenient it was to have an amazing tool with which I could access the entire world, I knew that it was a pseudo-Savior for me. So I switched back to a "dumb phone." I have never felt so free and connected to God and others. Funny how that works...

   So I invite you to join me in discovering who you really are underneath all the soul medicine you are using to hide your pain. Be courageous enough to take out anything in your life that is acting as a pseudo-Savior, and run back to Jesus. You will find freedom and connection that you had totally forgotten about. It is there that you will find the grace that you had been looking for all along.