outside the box....

The idea for this blog came to me this evening while I was once again packing my meager possessions into boxes in preparation for my move to Dallas. I kept thinking how I glad I am that my worth in life was not measured by how many boxes all my belongings fit in. Life is so much more than what we take with us when we move. The tribal groups of Papua New Guinea can and do carry everything they own balanced on their heads. Most people in America need a fleet of moving vans and personal vehicles to transport their earthly belongings from one residence to the next. I may have more than a cooking pot and a grass skirt to my name, but everything I own still fits into one car quite nicely and is still more than I really need for survival. It strikes me as odd that humans put so much significance on what we own, and use our material possessions to gage our self worth.
Lest you get the impression that I don't suffer from this strange delusion, I find myself constantly fighting to remember that it is not the clothes I wear or the car I drive, or the hair cut, or the makeup, or the books I read, or the music I listen to or any other cultural definer which makes me who I am or gives me worth. Life is so much more than the boxes I put my things in, and I am ready to start living life outside the box. I want to step outside the boxes I have built for myself, those sanctuaries and shrines built to the "comfortable" things in life. I reject the boxes that I think others want me to fit in. Anything that limits me beyond what God himself has limited me to is simply a tool of the enemy to keep me immobilized lest I actually live in the freedom of grace. Can I really do that? Even as I pack up all my stuff, half wishing I could pitch it over the bridge into the Brazos, half wishing I could be driving some posh 2008 Dodge Charger at the head of my own fleet of U-hauls, I wonder if I can ever really be free...to live outside the box.