Last night, I had the pleasure of doing one of my least three favorite things: attending a wedding. It’s not that I have anything against the institution or anything. It’s just that suit + strangers = a very uncomfortable situation for me. And that’s before you get to the reception where you mix in dancing with strangers (sounds like a great new reality show).

This wedding was rather painless as weddings go. Nice, short ceremony. Good food. Interesting people. And I even let my wife drag me to the dance floor for a few songs.  Back to the interesting people. At our table, we had a young couple from San Francisco, a couple who recently moved back to Nashville and were expecting their first child in a few months, and a martial arts expert who spent the last 15 years training young men for special forces assignments. He formerly was the one accepting special forces assignments, going on covert, top-secret, high-danger missions across the globe. I sized him up, fascinated that I had the exact same size and build as this Chuck Norris character. As he talked about some recent cage matches he had attended (seriously, cage matches), I joked that I would last about 20 seconds in a cage (depending on how long it took the other guy to catch me). He responded very matter of factly by telling me it’s just all about training, like everything else.

Later, as the conversation continued, he posed a question. “Why do you think that elephants at the circus can be restrained with just a small chain on their leg? Don’t you think they could break that very easily?” He went on to explain what  he called “the elephant theory.” I feel like I’ve heard this before, and assume that anyone reading this likely has as well. But combining his brief explanation with a quick and dirty Google search, here it is.  

Supposedly, when an elephant is young, a chain is placed around its leg, the other end fastened to the trunk of a tree.  After several attempts to wander past the boundary imposed by the chain, the elephant realizes it can’t break free and so it adjusts accordingly. When fully grown, the same elephant can be restrained by the same chain, despite the fact that it could easily rip it apart, because it has been programmed to believe the chain is too strong. Resistance is futile. The chain wins.

As I was sitting down to write my blog post for today, the following analogy came flying right at me, so thank you Chuck Norris. I have no doubt it has been used in countless sermons. I am under no delusion that I am the first to successfully map “elephant theory” back to a spiritual truth. But God did share it with me, so I’m paying it forward.

A struggle I have is that I feel like I’ve been programmed, unintentionally, to be chained by sin. At an early, impressionable age, we all learn that we are not worthy of salvation, that it is by grace we are saved, not through works. Please understand, I believe that to be true, 100 percent true, but I also believe that many of us are set up for failure in our walk because we hear “you can’t overcome sin on your own” but internalize “you can’t overcome sin.” Uh oh, just missed a few important words on the end of the transmission. Two big words.

Even if we get it right in translation, this truth is what chains us when we drift from God.  I wrote earlier about idols, meaning things we rank in front of God, and how they impose an utter lack of prioritization. Here we are talking about chains, the self-imposed challenges we place, building on the idols in our lives with a complete lack of trust in God. We’ve been trained that we can’t overcome the tiny chains of sin. And we don’t trust that God will provide. So we are leaving it up to ourselves, and we know we can’t win.

What is the outcome of this madness going to be? A powerful elephant that could be demonstrating its strength is instead led around by a small chain for the world to witness its weakness.

It’s not just that we do a bad job of internalizing the teachings and trusting in God. We also are all human, and have all made mistakes. And just like elephants, we have long memories. It’s funny, I sometimes leave the living room and forget what I needed before I get to the kitchen, but I never forget for one second any significant transgression or failure that I’ve had in my time on this planet. Whether they be spiritual struggles or otherwise. By holding on to these past transgressions, even the ones we’ve served up to God, we create chains. We tie ourselves down. We place ourselves in bondage. We accept future limitations based on past truths. We don’t for a second stop to think that we might be stronger now, or that we could grow stronger. We are defined by a past we can’t forget. We can’t run because of chains, despite the fact that we could shed them fairly easily.

It is a very effective tactic for Satan to use against us. He takes a truth about us not being worthy, and then uses that deeply seeded belief in unnatural ways to construct  a chain that says because of this, we can’t successfully overcome sin. Because of this, we have failed and will fail again. Because of this, we also aren’t worthy to pursue God, to be in community with God, to have a deep relationship with Him, to contribute to His Kingdom. I don’t think many of us consciously think like this, but it’s the internal hopeless feeling that many of us have about our current situation where this comes into play. We haven’t fully trusted God, and we’ve failed on our own, so we just pace in circles around a tree, accepting the limitations imposed on us by our selves and our surroundings. You’ve heard it. You’ve said it. “I can’t change this. I can’t do anything about this.”

Oh yes you can. And you can start by forgetting what isn’t possible in the first place.

Philippians 3:13-14 No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.

Once again, thank you Chuck Norris. I am in training, and have been in training for a while now, preparing for my own cage match. This training will equip me to overcome any physical, mental or spiritual limitations of mine that would give an advantage to my enemy. I can’t wait until I get my mind right, forget the preconceived notions built by the past, rip this chain off my leg and start running to freedom. Care to join me?