The African impala is a beautiful animal. When I went on a trip with my wife to South Africa several years ago, I got to see one up close and personal. I was overwhelmed by everything about this beautiful creature. One of the things that most impressed me was its ability to jump. It can jump ten feet straight up in the air. And it can jump forward thirty feet at a time. That’s how it moves so fast and avoids predators.
Despite all its beauty, its power and its ability to leap high and long, a little cage about the height of a grade-school child is all that is needed to keep it trapped.
Yet if you put an African impala in a three-foot high cage, it will not try to leap out to obtain its freedom. Despite all its beauty, its power and its ability to leap high and long, a little cage about the height of a grade-school child is all that is needed to keep it trapped. If you put one in such a cage, it will remain incarcerated there for life. This is due to one significant flaw of the African impala. It will not jump where it cannot see. Thus, its movements are limited to what it can see.
While the impala has the ability to free itself from the cage, it won’t exercise that ability because it won’t trust what it cannot see.
While the impala has the ability to free itself from the cage, it won’t exercise that ability because it won’t trust what it cannot see. Many of us are similarly controlled by circumstances which imprison us behind our own walls of fear, uncertainty and doubt. The devil uses these walls to keep us trapped, knowing that far too many of us feel the need to see before we set out. Yet faith doesn’t operate that way. Faith operates on the basis of belief. As Hebrews 11:1 reminds us: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Believe and leap free from the snares of the enemy.
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