GIVING YOURSELF PERMISSION

This devotional is short but can be life changing. I pray you will find it so. I have added my thoughts at the close.
Back when I was in grade school. It was always a special treat when the teacher gave the class permission to do something unusual. I remember one hot and humid afternoon when she gave everyone permission to go barefoot after lunch. We got to pull off our socks, stick them in our sneakers, and wiggle our toes all we wanted to. During the afternoon recess that extra freedom added great speed to our softball game on the playground.
During my year in the corps, there were a few times when memos read "permission granted" and everybody cheered. As I look back on the times of my life when someone in authority gave permission to do the unexpected, I cannot recall even once when it wasn't accepted unanimously and enjoyed to the fullest. Nobody in our fifth grade class even thought of keeping their shoes on during the 90-plus-degree afternoon. Guys and gals alike were barefoot in seconds. And not a single marine asked the captain if he could go ahead and work those two days instead of taking those days off. We're talking instant acceptance and total enjoyment. All it took were those two wonderful words "Permission Granted."
Isn't strange then, now that you and I are grown and have become Christians, how reluctant we are to give ourselves permission to do......to think......to say.....to buy and enjoy.....or to be different and not worry about who may say what?
Even though our God has graciously granted us permission to be free, to have liberty, to break the chains of rigidity, and enjoy this life so much, many in His family seldom give themselves permission.
So many use strange reasoning: I mean, after all, what would people say?" or "Well. I wasn't raised to enjoy life, I was taught to be more conservative, more reasonable, more responsible and serious than that."
So goes the persuasion of an oversensitive conscience trained in the school of Negativism. Tragic. No, worse than that, it is downright unbiblical! Have we forgotten the promise," ........where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3:17) Let that sink in.
Paul jumped all over the Galatians for allowing a handful of legalistic judaizers to invade their lives and clip their wings, remember his rebuke?
You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you...? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected in the flesh?...It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery ....For you were called to freedom, brethren......Gal 3:1, 3; 5: 1, 13.
In other words, "Permission granted." Enjoy! Be who you are. Give yourself the O.K. to break the mold and exercise your God-given freedom.
It may take awhile. And you will have to train yourself to care less and less about what a few might say. It will help if you remind yourself when they criticize you they simply want you to be as miserable as they are. Since they cannot give themselves permission, who do you think you are to get away with that? If you keep that maverick thought in mind, it'll help you soar like an eagle instead of standing around with all the turkeys.
Do you know your biggest hurdle? You. It is giving yourself permission, plain and simple. If you fail to press on while the light is green, you will spend so much of your life in the amber zone waiting for " just the right moment" or " a time when most people will understand" that you will find yourself on your death bed surrounded by regrets.
God, in grace has purchased you from bondage. Christ has literally set you free. The Spirit of the Lord has provided long awaited liberty.
Give your self permission to lift those wings and feel the exhilaration of a soaring life. Allow the green light of grace to shine brighter than the amber light of caution or the red light of don't.
The Lord really had me reflect and look around me after reading this. We Christians do seem to live a lot of the time as if because of our faith we aren't suppose to enjoy life. Instead of the weight being lifted off of us we seem to be carrying it all. Then we wonder why when we share our beleifs with someone they look at us as if to say. "Yeah right!"
God did not create this beautiful world so we would go around with our heads down never to take in the awesome majesty of His beautiful creation. Look around you. Everything in God's natural creation is free.... growing...... soaring..... living....... bursting with such beauty at times that it can take your breath away. Nights where the stars sparkle in glistening radiance and whispering....take in our sparkle our shine, put it in your heart and pour it out to others, through the beauty of your smile, the gleam in your eyes, the touch of your love. Even the total silence along a wooded trail is shouting of God's beauty. SSSHHHH Listen!!!! On a windy day in the quiet of a park lie down flat on a picnic and look up through the trees, see the beauty of the sunlight as it shimmers in time with the tree branches dancing in the wind. If you listen real close it is almost as if you can sense that the trees are being brushed aside as our Lord walks by, His hair streaming behind Him and His beautiful gentle eyes gazing, searching for that one lost sheep, and His love won't let Him stop until that sheep is found and In His loving embrace.
One other thing to think about. Do you really think God went to all the trouble of giving you your five senses, with the intention of not using or enjoying them?
He did not create you to walk around being miserable with a frown on your face, a heart so surrounded by false legalistic rules and false submission that nothing can get through. What is worse nothing can get out. No genuine love, compassion, empathy or joy.
So go ahead take off your socks and shoes. Run barefoot in the grass, through a stream. Guy's be daring, hold your wife's hand or put your arm around her in public. Let her and the world know that she is special and priceless and how blessed you are that she is your wife. Jump with you spouse into a pile of leaves and see who can bury who. Help with folding the laundry and have a sock throwing fight, you can't match up all the white socks anyway so you might as well have some fun. Swing on the swings. Your never to old. Take a vacation. Run with your children through a jungle gym. Buy yourself something nice and then, I know this may be hard, don't feel guilty! Really step out, smile at a cashier tell them how grateful you are the line was so long, because you got to read the novel you were going to buy and now don't have to. And hand it to Him!
So be daring. Enjoy the life that God created you to enjoy and Jesus purchased for you. You are His beautiful creation, His child. You have been freed from the yoke of bondage, of slavery and you are His heirs. Go ahead. The light is not only green...... The Light is Jesus Himself!