I once heard a man tell about an experience his family had raising hogs.  The hogs wouldn’t stay in the pen.  So his father installed an electric fence and put the hogs inside.  The fence consisted of one or two thin wires through which an electric current passed.  The hogs immediately tried to leave, but each time one made contact with a wire it received a shock.  So they quit trying to escape.

    Later, the fence was needed elsewhere, so it was removed.  But the hogs didn’t escape.  They didn’t even try.  They steered clear of the line where the fence had been, believing they were still held by its power.

    What a picture of the defeated Christian.  He has been set free by The Saviour, but has allowed Satan to convince him that he is not really free.  He tries to conquer habits and attitudes with the expectation that he will fail.  He may descend into despondency and depression, seeing no way out,  when all the time he is free.  Free to fail, but also free to succeed.  Free to win over despair.  Free to have the abundant life of which Jesus spoke.

    I read about another boy whose father owned a grocery store in a small town.  Farmers used to bring chickens to town to trade for salt and flour.  They would catch several fryers and bind their legs with string before bringing them in.  After they were weighed, the boy would cut the strings that bound them.  But they would just lie there in the same position.  They had been bound so long, they didn’t know they were free.  So, he said, “I would do what any red-blooded boy would do, I would kick those chickens and they would fly screaming.”

    Maybe some of us need a swift kick to shake us out of our false belief that we are still bound.  Sometimes the Lord lets things come into our lives to help us in this area.  We are jolted, and we fall back on the God we once trusted for everything.  And we discover we are free.

    To those who are “under the circumstances,” defeated and despairing, the psalmist says, “the snare is broken, and we are escaped.”  Believe it, Christian friend.  The snare is broken.  Jesus broke it on the cross.  Satan doesn’t want Christians to know this.  But the Spirit does.  And He works in many ways to help us enter into the freedom we have in Christ.

    Perhaps you are in such a place right now.  Life has overwhelmed you.  You can’t break through to victory.  You are ready to give up.  But the Bible says the snare is broken.  And the next verse says, “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”  That’s Jesus.  He created everything out of nothing.  He can rescue you from your defeat.

    He’s waiting for your call.