“Like a bee trying to exit a window is the heart of man trying to find true freedom.” -A Romanian Proverb
OK, so that isn’t actually a Romanian Proverb. Or a proverb at all. I made it up. But keep reading and you’ll understand the point.
BARELY MISSING IT
On May 3, we’re in Romania and I wake up early to get a shower, you know, the typical morning routine.
What wasn’t typical was the very unexpected visitor.
An obnoxiously loud bee had made its way into the bathroom via Florin and Denise’s ceiling window/skylight and was ferociously buzzing around, trying to find its way back outside.
It tried everything, pushing its way against the green tile, the mirror and the shower (hello!) but it primarily hung out on the window, trying so hard to get back outside.
The opening in which he entered the room and could have returned through to gain outside access was just below where he was flying and he was clearly and obviously missing the way out.
Observe:
If you can see it, the bee is on the white strip on the left side, middle of the way down, and the way to freedom is the small crack below.
I became this bee’s mini-cheerleader. I whispered little cheers, trying to push him toward the exit, “Come on, little guy, you’re so close! Just keep flying toward the fresh air! You’ve got this. Come on!” My pep rally was unsuccessful.
As I watched this bee, my thoughts were filled with friends and family who I know are trying to find an escape from their conscience, sin or guilt, while true freedom stands available to them—closer than they ever know.
Like the bee, they think they’re doing the right thing. I mean, this buzzing creature was pushing on a clear window, it looked like he was going to be able to reach the tips of those trees and fly off into the blue skies, but he was too blind to see that he was hitting a window and not the real thing. He was missing what was right in front of him.
The Bible says sin is pleasurable (Hebrews 11:25) but it’s a fleeting pleasure, but because of that pleasure people convince themselves they’re doing the right thing. “If it feels good, it can’t be bad, right?” Wrong. Eventually that pleasure will run out and you’ll have to move on to something else to quench the inner longing of your soul. That longing for pleasure, hope, comfort and love can only be satisfied by the Divine. By Jesus alone. And so many people are missing it.
Barely missing it.
Are you?
Don’t miss the way to true pleasure, true freedom, eternal joy and a relationship with the greatest Person the world will ever know. Dig into the Word of God and you will find the Way to true freedom.
There are so many things I could (and want to) say about this, things about how our perspective before Christ is blindness and how we need Him to open our eyes in order to see the narrow gate, but this is supposed to be a munch of a blog and not a full meal so I’ll leave you with one final thought from that morning in the bathroom.
Before I opened the window as wide as possible to let the bee out, it stopped on the side of the window (as seen in the picture above). It seemed at that point its hunt for an escape was over because it sat there for a long, long time, apparently content to now remain inside. I kept rooting for it to just fly down a little in order to go out, but it didn’t move until I opened the window.
It was then that this popular quote from C.S. Lewis came to mind:
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Don’t settle for mud pies in the slum, dear friend. God is so much better than that.
Sophie Miller 