Set Free to Praise

Set me free from my prison,

   that I may praise your name.

Then the righteous will gather about me 
   because of your goodness to me.

Psalms 142:7

Bad choices, our own and others; sin, our own and others; and circumstances that just happen can put us in what feels like a prison. We can't seem to find our way out and we just seem trapped. 

We do the only thing we can (and should) do. We cry out to the Lord to free us. He hears. We wait. We cry out. In his time he acts. He acts to save us, not so we can put ourselves back in prison, but to be free to praise him and free to serve him. His goodness glorifies Him. His goodness is not a free pass to be foolish. 

I grew up watching The Andy Griffith Show and there was this character names Otis. Otis was the town drunk and he would often arrest himself and put himself in jail until he sobered up. He could get the keys and let himself in our out whenever he wanted. Sometimes we think we can do that. We can get into trouble and cry out to God and he'll just deliver us and let us go until we put ourselves back in jail. We keep doing this until we find out we can't get out and we find out the problem is we keep putting ourselves in the same situation and wonder why. Playing with sin, not living by faith, is not like being Otis on The Andy Griffith Show. Being "jailed" by something that is not of faith is not what God wants for us. He wants us to be truly free. 

Whatever the "prison" you are in God wants to deliver you, but he does not want you to just go right back. He wants you to be free in Christ. Free to live by faith. Free to love. Free to serve.