Driven or Led?

More than fifteen centuries ago, a man named Augustine—who would later become one of the great teachers of the Christian faith—looked back on his life and described it with a kind of unflinching honesty

“I was bound not by another’s irons, but by my own iron will.”

He had come to see something that most of us discover only slowly: it is possible to feel trapped not because of what surrounds us, but because of what has taken hold within us.

Several years ago, newspapers carried the story of a desperate prisoner in Australia who managed a daring escape. He slipped out of a county jail by hiding beneath a delivery truck, clinging to its undercarriage as it passed through the gates and out onto the highway. For twenty minutes he held on as the truck sped away, certain that freedom lay just ahead. When the vehicle finally stopped, he dropped to the ground and rolled out—only to discover that he was inside the walls…