by Ricky Doc Sauceda
I had a wild uncle growing up. He was tough, always living the hard way and I rarely saw his good side. As a toddler, he tied me with a rope in a room and left me alone. I cried out to God to help me. The ropes fell from my arms. They were tied behind my back around the chair. Uncle Charlie told me he tied them as tight as he could. He could not figure out how I got loose. I never told him how.
He repeated this story to me as a high school aged young man in the early 80s. He died soon thereafter at a bar after a fight had broken out in a parking lot. He was shot in the chest and managed to go back inside and call his older brother, my uncle Andrew. When uncle Andrew arrived, he walked over to uncle Charlie and said,"I'm here." Uncle Charlie was cold to the touch and was slumped over on the bar. Uncle Andrew said,"Oh, Charlie."
My bindings were the ropes that God loosed so that I could be free. Uncle Charlie's bindings were a life of sin: drugs, booze, women, burglary and other things. God could have loosed those bindings as well. Whatever is my uncle's final place in eternity is up to God. Whatever is our final place there is up to God as well.
Let God loose your bindings. Amen.