There was once a guy named Max who would avoid Stop-street signs at all costs. He had never attempted to drive because of this fear. In fact, it had dictated almost every area of his life. In his endeavor to avoid Stop streets, he had mapped out his route around his town. It dictated where he was able to buy his food from – a corner store that had resulted in terrible health problems due to lack of good nutrition. It meant that the people he loved were either extremely inconvenienced by him, or had left him due to frustration. This resulted in a depression that caused him to hardly ever leave his house. No one understood him. He had obviously just fallen on the bad side of life – and no one could ever relate.
His fear dictated everything – but where did it come from? The reason why Max could not endure the sight of a Stop sign was because he had never seen one before. You see the town where he lived had been twenty kilometers from the city. It had three parallel roads and everyone knew everyone. But one holiday his family decided to travel to the seaside where he contracted a terrible sickness, which caused him to lose consciousness. After a long time he woke up – in his bedroom at home.
But home was no longer home. In fact, it was stranger to him than the phones with no chords or the way people treated each other. The city had grown so large that it had reached his little town. And now on almost every corner were these round red Stop signs that would taunt him.
But one day, he met a friendly policewoman as he was walking towards his corner store. She smiled and greeted him before calling to a group of kids on the other side of the road he was about to cross. She was a new addition to his usual journey. He walked past the local pre-school, he noticed she was holding a large pole with a hexagonal sign on the end. As he was waiting to cross the street, she blew her whistle and placed the pole down in front of an on-coming car. Max was a little taken aback. He saw the children walk across the road towards him, and realized it was safe for him to cross as well. Once he was on the other side, he turned back to look at the woman and was shocked to see the dreaded red road sign painted on the other side of the pole she was holding. But strangely its sight did not frighten him anymore. After getting what he wanted from the store, he decided to take a different, more scenic route home.
Avoidance techniques
This may seem like a far-fetched, random scenario, but I have found a few situations like this in my very own life. All of us are strange. We experience life in a way that seems normal to us, but there are huge gaping gaps where we completely miss what the majority would consider ‘common’. Where we find ourselves unaware of what people consider normal, we can very easily create systems and structures to ‘survive’ – in many cases completely debilitating ourselves.
One such area in my life (there are a few…) is the concept of friendship. Don’t get me wrong – I have had many extraordinary friends throughout my life – but I have never been comfortable with the true essence of what a friend is. I grew up uniquely. Factors such as living immersed in different cultures, going to an extremely sheltered school and doing life with a visually challenged parent resulted in my definition of ‘normal’ being relative: Everyone’s normal was different, and I existed outside of it.
Now I don’t want you to miss the point of this by feeling sorry for me. Yes, I built my whole life and behavior on ways to ‘deflect’ intentional friendship. It resulted in me having no true connection to anyone. But I have in no way had to simply ‘accept the fact’ that life was going to be like that for me forever.
So what are you avoiding in your life? God will always pinpoint the issues that are debilitating our souls. These issues may not be as basic as a large red ‘Stop sign’, but they have as much of an effect on the way we live (if not more). When Max encountered the power of what he was trying to avoid, he no longer had any reason to fear it. It all of a sudden set him free to experience the wonder of the life around him.
In a society where there is enough distraction for us to go our whole lives without facing our own issues, I believe there is a better way to live. God wants us to live wide, expansive lives full of freedom. True freedom. Trying to avoid him is probably the most restrictive thing you could do. He is everywhere – placing himself at every crossroad, waiting for us to acknowledge him.
I am convinced that the greatest problem humanity has is the absence of a personal relationship with God. He is the most liberating factor to my life that has enabled me to tackle the oddities of my existence. There is power in opening up your life to him; if you want to do so, click on the link below right now.