and the walls come tumblin' down

I have a piece of the Berlin Wall sitting on the bookshelf in my bedroom.
A piece of this wall, a wall that stood for oppression and isolation, is sitting in my bedroom, as a reminder that walls can come down.

But forty years ago, nobody would have ever imagined that this wall could come down. Nobody would have ever dreamed of seeing the other side of this dreadful wall, ever again. Nobody believed that the wall that had been so present for a lifetime, containing them, trapping them, could ever come down.

Can you imagine being born into a world, living a lifetime suffocated by the presence of such oppression? Can you imagine believing that this was normal, that this was how life was intended to be?

Can you even imagine the emotions as the wall fell? Can you imagine what it felt like to be released from the bounds of this wall, from the authority of the guards telling you that freedom was not possible? Imagine the relief as you took a sledgehamer to this wall, this prison, and watched as it crumbled before you, and freedom was, once again, yours. It's powerful, right?

History is full of reasons to hope. I keep a piece of this wall on my bookshelf, in my bedroom, as a reminder that walls can come down, that freedom belongs to those who seek it, that God is a God of liberation. He does it for nations, for people groups, and He does it for individuals, for you and me.

Everyone, I think it's fair to say, has their own wall. It's usually the one thing that keeps you from truly living, the one thing that keeps you from wholeheartedly trusting in the name of Jesus. And, it's usually monstrous and scary.

It starts when we're young and it's full--of our insecurities, our failures, our fears; full of defense mechanisms and distrust; full of bad memories and every negative thing that we've been trained to believe, about ourselves and our world. Our response to the world is conditioned by the presence of this huge, ugly thing in our lives. It's dark, it's constricting, it's awful, and yet we've never lived without it.

And God says from the very beginning that He will knock it down, as soon as we are ready to take the first swing. Our reaction is very rarely to run to the shed and get the sledgehamer; we've become so comfortable with this life, regardless of the frustration and sadness over the presence of this wall, that we cannot even understand the freedom that comes on the other side. We've never lived without this wall--so much of our identity is decided by this stupid wall.

At what point do you decide that the pain of living with this wall is less than the pain you might experience while you knock it down? When have you had enough of letting this wall dictate how you respond to the people and the circumstances in your life? When do you finally realize that the freedom that Jesus offers us is better than life?

When do you finally decide that it's time to tear down this wall and let freedom be yours?