I once read a devotional by Charles Swindoll in which he tells the story of a man in India who brought a number of live quail to market with them. He kept control of them by tying a string around one leg of each bid. The string was then tied to a ring that was attached loosely to a peg in the ground. The man had, by so doing, trained the birds to walk single file around and around in a circle.

Well, a Hindu who saw this was horrified at the indignity of the birds and told the man that he would purchase them all. The merchant was of course ecstatic. The buyer had one condition. . . the birds had to be set free. The man thought it was odd to pay for birds and then set them free but . . . they were his birds.

He cut the string off the birds and guess what happened? They continued to walk in circles! The man finally had to shoo them away. But they flew only a short distance and then began walking in the familiar circle again.

The religious implication of this is whether we really choose to accept God’s grace and live out our lives for Him rather than going on with the same cycle as always. However, this story also applies to the ruts that we allow ourselves to get into on other levels as well. How very many parts of our lives are routine – always the same old, same old! Imagine if we could cut the ropes from our legs and fly unfettered, looking for new ways of doing things -- exciting things, invigorating things! It is only when we expand our minds outside of the routine that we can grow.