Malfunctioned Lift

Many years ago, I was living in a HDB flat. Among several similar incidences, there was one in particular. I remember waiting for the lift for a considerable time, only to hear the bell ringing continuously. Someone was trapped in the lift!

No matter how she tried to pull the door open from the inside of the lift, the door refused to budge. From the outside, there was also nothing anyone who came to assist could do to get the door to open. The poor victim was simply stuck, banging on the door, crying out for help. She was all alone; afraid and threatened. What if the lift started to drop, free-fall? Were the people outside really trying to get her out? Were they going to call for the servicemen for her? Or were they going to give up and walk away, leaving her behind, stuck?

A thick and stubborn door separated the victim from everyone and everything else on the outside. The air was suffocating without ventilation, and the level of carbon dioxide in the air was increasing, especially with her heavy breathing from her anxiety and fears. She knew that if help did not come soon, she was going to die of suffocation. There was only one thing she could do - cry for help by persistently pressing on the alarm button and then hope for someone to come to her rescue.

Source

Have you ever been trapped in a malfunctioned lift before? Perhaps, like me, you are very thankful that you never had such a frightening experience. Yet, were there other incidents whereby you felt as if you were like this victim, trapped in a lift?

At times, our life experiences leave us with so much pain and trauma that we build a thick wall around our hearts and lives, like a lift door that shuts us out from everyone and everything else outside. When our wounds are left unhealed, when our injuries are brushed aside and left untreated, our brokenness left unloved. It is not uncommon to find within our lives, instances whereby we overreacted in a situation that does not really seem that severe after all. And if we were to dig deeper at why we had overreacted, we may come to discover an open wound and our unnecessarily drastic reaction was a result of a slamming of that lift door, a natural defence mechanism that kicked in to protect us from revisiting that same painful wound.

This lift door, slammed, keeps us disconnected, and like the victim, it prevents us from getting out to reach those on the outside and prevents others from ever getting in to the depths of our hearts. Until the repairman comes to the rescue and forces open the door.

Yet, not everyone trapped in the lift of our daily experiences really want to call for help and get out; they are comfortable in the lift, making it their new home. Without any furniture inside, they make up their own imaginary ones and convince themselves that this is home, that everything is alright, under control, normal. And they get along this way... everyday... in an illusion, falsehood.

Source

Then, there are many who do not know how to get help; they do not realise there is an alarm button to press. They know they are trapped, stuck, helpless and afraid. They bang, they kick, they scream, they pray for help, they frantically fish out their mobiles, only to escalate their anxiety when they realised that there is no signal, no reception in the lift. With all their might, they try to force open the door until they grow exhausted and waves the white flag in a great despair. All these when the alarm button sits quietly upon the control board, waiting to be pressed.

Yet again, many more do not even arrive at the awareness that there is a need to press the alarm button. They do not even realise that they are in a lift, that the lift door has been shut, jammed and they have been trapped. In their daily experiences, they go on living life without using their eyes and ears. They do not recognise their brokenness, nor do they recognise their need for healing and reconciliation. Every day passes by so quickly, there's hardly any time or energy left to pause and consider the state of one's well being.

There is yet another category of people who will press the button and will continue to press it without pausing. They are in such deep desperation that a minute passed without help received is like another decade in living hell. They are so consumed by fear and insecurities that they forgot that it takes time for help to come. A repairman needs time to travel to the required location. They try an entire combination of methods, from knocking to kicking to sounding the bell to trying to force open the door themselves. They feel that they are alone, fear that no help will come. Calmness is not within their means.

Whichever the category we belong to, regardless of how we got ourselves trapped in the lift to begin with - some lifts get jammed because of people who refuse to wait for the next lift and insist on overcrowding the lift , some friends were stuck in a lift before because they decided to jump up and down inside it, some are stuck simply because the lift malfunctioned - we need the repairman to get us out.

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Our negative life experiences, regardless of its blame resting upon others, our own selves or simply a consequent of a natural occurrence beyond our control, require God's healing grace. Without Him who dismantles the hardened walls of our hearts, there is no way we can get out to meet the world, no way anyone can come near us, and ultimately, no way that God can enter into our hearts and unlock the peace, hope and joy that He desires to give to us. We cannot heal ourselves, nor can we force down the wall by our own strength. We are finite creatures with limited capacities. But we sure can push the alarm button and call for Divine Intervention. And when we do, will our loving Father not extend to us His helping hand in His own time and ways?

But we must call upon the right "repairman". It will be most futile and quite ridiculously irrelevant to call upon a doctor or a car mechanic to repair a lift and get us out. Just as many people try to cure their brokenness by distracting their hearts and minds with superficial activities that give them an imitation kind of happiness and excitement, they will never get the "real thing", the real cure, the real and complete healing, that only God can give.

As we advance towards Christmas, we may like to ponder about the state of our hearts...
Are they trapped in a lift in any way?
What got it to be trapped?
Are we going to call for help? How? Who?
Will we dare to take that leap of faith to allow God to work in us so as to prepare our hearts more fully to receive Him anew this Christmas?

14 December 2011, Wednesday
12.11am