I was sitting at my desk in my office the other day working on the never-ending pile of paperwork. In the sun-drenched window to my left, something caught my eye. It was one of those beautiful spring days with vibrant colors, green grass in the pasture, and a rich blue sky with puffy white crowds. That by itself would be enough to distract me from my paperwork, but what had caught my attention was the lone bald eagle soaring on the wind currents. This scene was not just distracting, it was inspiring. I sat and took it in for quite some time.

Over the next few days, I reflected on that scene. What was it that resonated so deep within me? What did I see? As I am moving through the middle stages of my life and career with the typical demands, responsibilities, family obligations, work expectations, not to mention, the list of patients coming in to see me that day and paperwork, always paperwork, what I saw at first was powerful, independent freedom. No responsibilities. No expectations. No demands. But when I reflected more deeply, I began to see something else. For the five to ten minutes I watched the eagle, he never flapped his wings once. This was not a picture of powerful, independent freedom, but rather a profoundly inspiring picture of powerful, dependent freedom. The eagle was soaring with grand expectancy and responsiveness on the wind currents. He was being who he was created to be; fully, uniquely himself, but also fully dependent on and one with the wind.

After years of seeing God at work all around me, I sometimes think I should be immune to the distracting call of independent freedom. However, there is a part of me that is still drawn to that scared space perspective. A part of me still wants to taste independently the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil apart from God. I still want the independent freedom to drift on my thoughts, to soar on the power of my plans, and to rest on me, my, mine… But, that is a false hope, a poisoned apple, a dark and distorted view. That is the essence of what I call “scared space”.

Several years ago, I started occasionally writing in my prayer journal sacred versus scared space statements. Recently, I have been posting them from time-to-time on our Facebook page. As we have come to say here at Sacred Space Ministries, the difference between sacred versus scared space is all in how you “C”.

No matter where we are in our journey, we are all still subject to the darkened and distorted view of “scared space”. We feel the allure of independent freedom and all it seems to offer. Dependent freedom seems like a contradiction in terms to us. But, I would suggest that the only way we truly soar is to “C” and submit with grand expectancy and responsiveness to the dependent freedom of being one with the wind of the Holy Spirit.

May you “C” and submit to God’s love today and find yourself soaring in sacred space.