When You Are Stuck, How Do You Become Unstuck? Here's How

He told me.  Just pull the cord, and it’ll stop.  So, I got on.   I looked for that cord.  It wasn’t there.  It wasn’t anywhere.  So, my nightmare began.

It happened when I was 12 or so.  My mom couldn’t pick me up from school.   And my dad had a meeting.   So. Dad said.  “You can just take the bus.”  The bus ran right by my school.  It went straight by the church where my dad worked.  I get on the bus.  I ride to the church.  I pull the cord.  Bus stops.  Problem solved.   But clearly my dad had not ridden a bus in a while.   Those cords you’d pull to stop the bus, they no longer existed.   For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to get that bus to stop. I saw it stop.   I saw people get off.  But I had no clue how they made that happen. 

So, what did I do?  I kept riding the bus.  I rode it right past the church.   I rode it all the way down to the end of the line at the edge of downtown Chattanooga.   Once there. I told the dispatcher my plight.  He had no sympathy.   So, I was stuck; standing on the sidewalk, muttering angrily what I would tell my dad, if I ever got home.   “Dad, there was no cord!”   But a member of my dad’s church saw me.  He asked. “Ken, what are you doing here?”  I told him.  “There was no cord!”   And Corky Clark, God bless him, got me where I needed to be.        

But I remember.  I felt so lost, stuck in a strange, even scary place.  I had no idea how I was going to find my way home.  Thankfully, Corky Clark and his car saved me.   But it’s not always that simple.

This past Monday, a son called me to visit his mom who lay dying in the hospital.  He told me her story, her Presbyterian faith, her faithfulness as a mom, his love for her.  And he shared how she carried deep regret and guilt over a broken romance in her past.  He wanted her to have peace in these final hours.  So, I went.  I prayed.  As I left, I thought about what he had told me.  After that broken relationship, she had never had another.  She remained stuck in that part of her life, in that guilt and regret.

I talk to a lot of folks in such stuck places.  Maybe they’re stuck in a fear or anxiety.  Maybe, it’s pain or hurt or grief.   Whatever it is though, they’re stuck   They know where they need to be.  They just struggle to know how to get there.  I get that.  I get that because I’ve been there too.  Some days, I’m there again.  But in these words, God reminds me.  God reminds you.  Here is what will always set you free.   What is that?  In these words, God shows you the way.  Let’s listen and hear what God has to say.

Galatians 2:11-16

In life, you get stuck.  Maybe, you get stuck in a destructive compulsion or habit.  Maybe it’s fear or worry; resentment or guilt.  Maybe it’s despair or discouragement that traps you.   Whatever it is, it’s awful.  It is awful.  But how do you get free?   Here God tells you.  God says.  Don’t just know the love. Walk in it.  

You see, you can know the good news.  You can know that God loves you no matter what, that God loves everyone no matter what.   You can know.  It’s not what you do or don’t do that saves you.  God’s love does that.  But knowing the love doesn’t mean you walk in it.   But that’s the key,  You can’t just know the love.  You’ve gotta walk in it.  What do I mean?

Look at what happens here.  Peter knows the gospel.  Peter knows God’s love for him.  He knows.  Only that love saves him.  Only that love frees him.  Only that love puts everyone right with God.  Nothing else.    But these leaders from James come.  And they don’t agree.    They believe.  Yes, Jesus’ love saves you. But not that alone.  You need these rules.  You need to keep kosher.  You need to get circumcised.  You need to abide by all these laws.  Then you’ll be free.   Then, you’ll be safe.  Then, you’ll be truly right.  

Peter knows.  They are wrong.   But what does he do?   When they come, he walks away from the Gentile believers.   He won’t even eat with them anymore.   Can you imagine how that felt?  Paul had told these believers.  God accepts you as you are.  You don’t have to become a Jew for God to accept you, for God to love you.   But then, Peter, this great Christian leader, who had eaten with these Gentile Christians, won’t anymore.   He discriminates against them, all because of these rules he doesn’t even follow.  Why did he do that?

Paul tells you.  Peter was scared.  He got trapped in his fear.   He got trapped because he wasn’t walking in what he already knew.   He knew. God doesn’t discriminate.  He knew. God’s love welcomes everyone.  Yet, in his fear, he fell back into prejudice.  He fell back into insecurity that led him to deny what he knew.  And why?  He wasn’t walking in what he knew. That’s literally how Paul put it.  It reads here as “they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel.”  But what Paul actually wrote was this, “they were not walking straight regarding the truth of the gospel.”    They were not walking straight. 

Just because you know the truth of God’s love doesn’t mean you walk straight in it.  But it’s when you do that it frees you.    It’s not enough to know it.  You gotta walk in it.   That’s how Paul challenges Peter.   Peter, don’t you know, the rules don’t make you right.  Jesus’ love does.   In Jesus’ love, everyone gets made right.  Everyone has a place at the table.  Walk in that.  Walk in that love, not in your fears, not in your prejudice. 

And walking in that same truth frees you.  Walking in that love would have freed that guilt-ridden mother to find love again.  Walking in that love would have freed my fear-filled 12- year-old self to ask someone for help on that bus.   

When you are stuck, the truth of that love frees you.  Trapped in worry or anxiety?  Then walk in the love that gave up everything to bring you home.    If Jesus’s love did that for, that love will be there for you now.   Stuck in despair and discouragement?  Walk in the love, the love that died and rose again for you.  If Jesus in his love did that, no place exists where he cannot raise you up.   Trapped in a destructive habit?  Then walk in the love.  Whatever comfort that habit gives, it cannot hold a candle to the comfort of Jesus’ love for you.     Wherever you are stuck, walk in the truth of the One whose love sets you free.   For you are beloved. You are valued.  You are right in God’s sight because of what Jesus in his love has done for you.   Walk in that love, in that beautiful truth.  In the name of the One who loved you first, who died and rose again, and who frees you from even your most broken places. Amen.