chained elephants

I heard the best "sermon" on the radio the other night.

It was about how baby circus elephants are chained to a stake dug deeply in the ground. They pull and pull and pull, then finally give up once they realize that they can't get loose. (That's not the great part.)

As mature elephants, they are still chained to a stake. The stake would never hold them if they tried to pull against it. They just assume that since the chain is there, and the stake is dug, they can't be loosed. So they stay. Chained.

The whole point was that we often believe some kind of lie about ourselves. A lie that keeps us chained. Held back. That if we only tried, we would find that we could be loosed.

I thought about myself. The lies that hold me back. My eating. I'm a good eater and always have been. I buy into the lie that I have no self control, and that I'm an eater and always will be. It's just who I am.

But it's a lie. I don't have to be a huge eater. I can have self control and be whom ever I want to be. No stake can hold me. I'm a huge elephant.