I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. John 12:46

On visiting Whitefish Point at the very Northern most tip of Michigan I experienced a Great Lake that sounds like the ebb and flow of the Pacific Ocean. We drove till the road ended. All that stretched beyond the end of the road was glorious water.

This visit filled my soul. As we walked back to the car I had to step over this massive chain. I thought, “Oh, photo opp!” So I snapped a few. These images like so many others have been silently waiting to be used.

We find ourselves taken captive by laundry, debt, parenting, self image, regret, depression…I’m sure you have a list of your own. They can feel like a massive chain, heavy, cumbersome, restrictive, unbearable.

It takes all our strength to accomplish a simple task when chained. We must know this, there is hope, there is relief., there is help. We can find it in Christ, in His Word, and the fellowship of His church.

Christ came to carry the chain for you. He came to take our sin on himself so we would not need to live in it or drag it around. Jesus came to cleanse us, to make us new, to give us a hope and life eternal with him in heaven.

His Word is light, it shines in the darkness. His word is guiding us, directing us, and revealing to us the chains we are carrying. In the light of His Word we can see the the chains that bind us, hinder us, and keep us from living fully for Him. In His Word is the power to remove them, walking straighter, taller and closer to

May the only one who can break your chains and bring you into His light find you right where you are, right now.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

1 John 1:5,7