In 1962, Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen, Jr., erected barricades on Peyton and Harlan Roads in an attempt to prevent the Peyton Forest neighborhood from being integrated. Delineating the black and white sections of the city, the barricade attracted national and international attention. Soon local black activists began picketing the barricades with signs that read “We Want No Warsaw Ghetto,” and equated the barricades with the Berlin Wall. Minor barricades, MAJOR problem.
A tiny barricade seemed insignificant but it was a touch point, a dividing line. For Atlanta it was a little barricade that represented something much much bigger. What is it for me? A “little” lie, a “little” character flaw, a “little” compromise. From the outside it seems insignificant but the inside is where the real war rages. Unfortunately by the time most people wake up to the reality of what’s broken, the scars are deep and the path of restoration is unspeakably more difficult than it needed to be if the issue was addressed much earlier on. I’m flawed beyond mention and in need of Gods mercy every day.
I’m in trouble when I forget just how much grace and mercy I need.
I’m in trouble when I begin to forget how frail and fallen I am.
I’m in trouble when I drift from the cross and enter in the world of self-justification and rationalization.
We all do it, in varying degrees, to avoid the reality of who we are and aren’t. But to realize our potential we have face the reality of our often painful present position and lean into Christ and appropriate the grace he offers to remove all the blockade and barricades that limit us and become all that God designed us to be.
What’s the barricade in your life that you call minor but in reality is causing, or has the power to create. MAJOR problems on your path?
No Comments Yet
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
