It's Not Too Late

On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela, leader of the movement to end South African apartheid, was released from prison after 27 years.  Mr. Mandela spent the first 18 years of his 27 years in jail at the brutal Robben island Prison.  He was confined to a small cell without a bed or plumbing; and was forced to do hard labor in a quarry.  He could write and receive a letter once every 6 months; and once a year, he could meet a visitor for 30 minutes.  But his resolve remained unbroken.  Although in jail, Mandela remained the symbolic leader of the anti-apartheid movement.  He also led a movement of civil disobedience at the prison and coerced the South African officials into drastically improving conditions there.  He was later moved to another location where he lived under house arrest until he was released in 1990.  In 1994, after the dismantling of apartheid and the establishment of a multiracial government, Mandela was elected president. 

Sometimes when I’m alone on the weekends and I have no plans, I get restless.  I get cabin fever.  I don’t like to be cooped up for very long.  I have to go out; even if it’s just to get gas or a donut.  The idea of being in prison for that many years doesn’t even fit in my head.  Nor can I even imagine living in the most offensive, grueling and cut-off conditions that Mandela lived.  The majority of us will never have to step into a prison cell; not even for a visit.  We live in the greatest country in the world where democracy and freedom are the truest and highest values we uphold.  We are free.  We are free to choose our schooling, our professions and our life mates.  We are free to choose where to live.  We are free to do as we please.  We live free and die free.  But the irony of this world’s freedom doesn’t escape me as a Christian.  We have incredible freedoms, yet we are imprisoned, trapped, and bound by our worldly pursuits, habits and doings.  We are deceived when we don’t see that these small choices can bring great consequences.  They appear to have minor importance at first - but choices that little by little, day to day, contribute to a loss of sensitivity; thereby allowing us to do worse things.  Those things we never would’ve imagined ourselves doing or falling prey to.  Those things that are offensive to God and that would’ve been distasteful to us a few years or even months ago.  Those things that are called sin.  Our lives are then fraught with the grueling conditions we have set for ourselves – shame, anger, stress, and pain; and we live lonely and cut-off from God; not by Him, but because we feel ashamed and unworthy. 

Thankfully, IT IS NOT TOO LATE.  “God strengthened him once more, and he toppled the pillars of the Philistine house, killing thousands.’  Judges 16:30.  It wasn’t too late for Samson, and it’s not too late for us.  We don’t have to live  in the prison of sin.  We can be different by the power of the Holy Spirit when we surrender to Him.  The bible lists Samson as a man of faith.  I thank God that in His strength, I can be counted as a woman of faith.