Leg Irons

Leg Irons

One of our main tasks in life is to free ourselves from the fears and beliefs that chain us to limitation –  to do that we must remove the leg irons that hobble us. It's a  HARD  job and it takes a great deal of courage. Often, we attempt to carry everyone else's leg irons also, thereby making it almost impossible to unlock our own. The weight is actually too heavy for any one person to bear, realistically speaking. This is such a difficult fact to accept. We always think of ourselves strong enough to carry any load. As the song goes, He Ain't Heavy… well, realistically speaking again, yes he is. You, as a good person, only want the best for all those around you.  How can you not carry the weight of the world for them of which they can not? But, spiritually speaking, you can not. This is not what God has truly asked of you, or me. Spiritually it will drain you from God.

When we shackle ourselves to the belief that we must be in charge of everyone's growth and happiness, we create guilt and frustration in ourselves and dependence and resistance in those we try to rescue. We only have the keys to unlock our own leg irons. To attempt to save others, even the ones we love, is really only a subtle putdown. We are saying in effect, " you  poor thing, I don't  believe you can run your own life. Therefore I guess I have to do it for you…sigh." But it doesn't work that way. You can not free them. This has nothing to do with being enslaved which we automatically connect to the word shackled. There are people who want the leg irons, who accept the leg irons and find great comfort in those leg irons. Being shackled in a cave for some is easier and less painful then dealing with freedom. Living freely, even loving freely, is entirely too risky for them. So they resist you, they push you away; they refuse all you offer them because somehow it offends them. You are offensive to them. This is the point where you must walk a different path from them. Dragging only your own leg irons, that may rightfully have been cuffed on you by that same person.  WE must be in search of only our key to salvation.  

WE need to be patience with ourselves and gentle to ourselves, for the belief that we are responsible for everything woven deeply into the fabric of our lives is not always true. You must accept the knowledge you can not change another person no matter how hard and right your concerns are. The only one who can change is you. The true key, the true strength, is accepting the knowledge that we ourselves will change.  And to accept that change will grant us freedom, freedom from what we can not change if nothing else.