“He brought them out of darkness, the utter darkness, and broke away their chains.” Psalms 107:14

A few years ago I read a study about the circus. Now you may be wondering where I am going with this, but trust me it is good. So I was reading a study about the circus and I was reading about how the circus treats and disciplines their animals and something stuck out to me. The section that stuck out to me was how the circus trains their elephants.

In most circuses, they train the elephants by chaining their leg to a post. This, of course, keeps the elephant from running off or starting a stampede. However, the interesting part is that they only chain them to a post as babies. All the baby elephants are chained to a post or cart. Therefore, when the baby elephants try to move their leg they cannot break away.

Why only the babies? Well, they still put chains on the adult elephants however these chains are not connected to anything. Now if you were anything like me this would sound very shocking and confusing. You would think that it would be more important to have the adult elephants actually chained to something rather than the babies because they are bigger, stronger, and smarter.

Well here is the reasoning. The research told me that circuses just chain the elephants to something when they are babies to break them mentally. The babies will spend months or years moving their foot trying to get loose with no progress. So by the time they are adults the elephants do not even try to move their feet anymore so there is no reason to have the chain connected to anything. As long as the adult elephant can feel the chain on their foot then they will mentally think that there is no point of moving.

In all actuality, the adult elephant could make a break for it and cause some serious damage, but the months or years of restriction have caused them to believe that they have no power or control to the point where they do not even bother to try anymore. Their mental chain is controlling them far more than the physical chain.

This whole idea got me thinking. I started to think that humans can often be like that. I think a lot of the time we let the enemy trick us into thinking that we have no power because maybe we have tried and failed before. We let the enemy trick us into thinking that we have no power or strength. He uses our past circumstances, or our failures to make us think that we are limited. However, even if you feel the weight of the chain or chains from anything in your life you should ask yourself if it is really holding you back. If it is, or if you think it is you can go to the father to ask him for clarity in a situation or freedom from the weight of a situation. Do not let your thoughts or your mentality chain you down. Let yourself lose. I hear the chains falling.