October 07th, 201510/7/2015 My name is Onesimus and I was born a slave. I never had any formal learning growing up. No family, no friends. Just me and a bunch of other slaves doing the duties for which we were purchased. Beaten by some masters treated kindly by others. It's a cruel lot the life of a slave. More then once I swore I'd get my freedom and that once free I'd never return to live out the worthless existence of a slave. I'd rather of been dead then spend my life serving someone else. One day I finally got the chance I had been waiting for all my life. Me and Fatty the cook were in the kitchen late one night snacking on some bits of cold meat our master had left for us. Our master was a good one as far as I could tell. He was kinder and different then the others I had. His name was Philemon and I now consider him my friend. Oy there I go again getting ahead of myself. Where was I...? That's right, me and Fatty eating some bits in the Kitchen. Well on this particular night a merchant had come to sell some wares and my master being pleased with what he had to offer stayed up late into the night and must have drank a bit too much cuz in time he nodded off. The merchant being a simple man and having drank too much trotted off into the night humming a song. Mindless I'm sure of the evil thoughts running through my mind. I not too quickly bid Fatty a good night and made as if I was going back to my room. At the last minute however I was out the back door and making for the road I knew the merchant must be traveling on. Him, his cart, his horses and wares, not to mention the large bag of coins I knew jingled in his pocket. After following him for a few miles watching him swagger drunkenly on his horse I couldn't wait any longer. I grabbed a stone and with a practically perfect throw I knocked him soundly on his head. Falling off the horse to the ground I grabbed the bag of coins jumped on his horse and made for the Port where I had heard one might obtain passage on a boat to Rome and once in Rome although a slave I could blend in with the money I had stolen and live what I thought would be a free and joyous life as my own master.
After bribing some sailors to stow me below deck I arrived after a few months in Rome what I hoped would be a type of heaven where I'd be free for the first time in my life. With a pocket although a bit lighter now after those thieving sailors had at me was still heavy with gold. For a number of years I lived in that great terrible place. Doing what I could to get by. Always hiding, always afraid, aware even when drunk thatI was that I was still a slave and a runaway slave at that. What I thought would be freedom became a kind of hell. The idea of returning to my master was beyond reason. He'd more then likely have me crucified as was the custom of our times and the just penalty for my crime. So I went on stealing, hiding, lying and drinking my way into an early grave. Then I met him. They said his name was Paul and although he was a prisoner with shackles to prove it he had a joy and peace on his face that both baffled and enraged me. How could he look so joyous and free while in a state worse then a slave while I who had, or so I had thought freed myself be so miserable and wretched. I had to know. I hung around the home he was being held in like a dog hoping for some scraps from the happy diners within. All day the joyous people came and went. It drove me mad! "What in blazes does this man have that sets all around him on fire with joy and mirth!" "He's in CHAINS for crying out loud!" Then it happened. On the third day of my slinking and pacing about I saw an old friend of mine enter the home. It was Epaphras! An old friend of my master. He was always kind to me and although I knew he might turn me in I couldn't stand it any longer and decided to risk it. After several hours of listening to the joyous laughter and singing from within Epaphras finally left. I had my chance. Running up I grabbed at him. He turned started at first then looked at me and smiled. As I watched the tender sparkle in his eyes at seeing me and the understanding smile break on his face I found myself crying. Crying for the first time in all my life. Half mad from all the coldness I seemed to melt in the peculiar warmth I saw in his gaze. "Tell me!" I sobbed. "I must know!" He wrapped his arm around me and took me back to the home he had just left. As we entered, me all a mess still sobbing like a little girl no one seemed particularly surprised or alarmed by my hysterical entry. There was an odd hodgepodge of folks sitting around a table with several candles giving light to the room. There was a soldier, a Dr, and an odd assortment of the high and the low although I didn't give much thought to them. I looked right at this Paul I knew I must meet. There he sat, an old man. Battered and scarred he looked like some of the retired gladiators I'd seen around Rome except he was too small to have been a soldier. I remember wondering what on earth he had gone through. Chained and under watch by guards although they didn't seem none too mindful he sat there grinning from ear to ear as he looked at me. "You seem troubled" he said. "Troubled" I responded "You don't know the half of it!" I told him pretty near all I could sometimes sobbing and sometimes shouting my story of woe and my fury at seeing him walk about in chains smiling at everybody! I had to have what he had! He must give me this eternal fire of joy that I saw burning in him and his friends. He asked me if I was done and when I said yes. He called for silence. Then he began to pray. Not like anything I'd ever 'eard before. The room was dead silent and it seemed I could hear God listening loudly. I don't remember much but I remember Paul praying to Jesus. Paul seemed to know this God and this God definitely knew Paul. I could feel this Jesus God without a doubt all around us in the room. After he stopped praying he explained to me that we are all runaway slaves. Our true master was God and that he wanted us to return. Thinking of my own master I couldn't imagine that kind of forgiveness. He told me about what had happened just 30 years earlier. That God became a man and came to earth to pay the price of our rebellion. This God man was Jesus who I had heard Paul praying to earlier. "Now" Paul explained "You can return to your true master without any fear of punishment." That did it right there! All the rebellion and pride left me. I knew I'd never be free. Philemon was never the one I was hiding from. I'd never be free and I knew it so long as I ran from God. I turned myself in right there. Not to my earthly master but my heavenly one. Willing to accept whatever punishment he would see fitting but hoping strangely aware that my heavenly master wasn't even angry with me. I felt a rush and heard a sound like wind! I began to jibber away I don't know what and was filled with a type of fire that began to lift me to a place of stature I didn't know existed. An ease of spirit and a release of shame overcame me. I knew I had obtained what I saw in Paul and felt like the luckiest man in all of Rome. Me a fugitive slave forgiven and free! I knew I'd never be a slave again no matter what I might do. In fact the idea of being a slave on earth didn't seem to bother me anymore. I was aware of life being about much more then I had thought before. As I write this now an old man restored to both my heavenly and earthly masters no more a slave but as a brother I can't help but see the hand of God through it all. It ended rather nicely and today the group of us meeting at my brother Philemon's house is growing all the time. Free at least for you see we're all born as slaves some of us are aware of it and others aren't. Only in Jesus have I found any true freedom I hope that you will reconcile yourself to your heavenly master as I did. You might be surprised by the freedom that comes from surrender.
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AuthorMy name's Uriah Lyford and I'm a volunteer with YWAM. My dream is to see the spiritual solution of a restored relationship with God through Jesus be made available to every person on earth. I do this through the mentoring and training of young people to build and become the Church Jesus died for. Archives
June 2018
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