Today’s the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall falling. Even all these years later you can’t help but be moved when you see footage of men and women standing on the wall, crowding around the wall, tearing down the wall, swinging and clawing with everything inside them.

But I read an article that kind of threw me for a loop. Reporter Mike Ahlers actually was in Berlin in November 1989, and he wrote an article for CNN. He didn’t make it there till after the wall had already “fallen.” Before leaving for Berlin, he read articles and listened to radio broadcasts and saw footage of people tearing down the wall. Mike showed up to Berlin expecting the only evidence of a wall to be a bunch of dust and rubble. But Ahlers explains that the wall was still standing, still casting a foreboding shadow on its citizens. In fact, guards were still at their posts, and citizens still had to show documents to get on either side of the wall! After all the pomp and excited defiance, the wall was still a wall. It had not been defeated yet.

Whenever you decide you’re going to make a change, it’s easy to get caught up in the idea of what’s going to be different, and celebrating the decision. The people of Germany, they were excited about being whole again, but they continued to live with the wall for some time.

I love to see people celebrate their decision to follow Jesus. I’m glad with there is passion and excitement about becoming a completely committed follower. But it’s not unusual to find that a month, a year, even twenty years later that decision didn’t bring about any real life change. Sometimes they never really get around to tearing down the wall.

Questions:

Have I just made a decision to follow Jesus or am I really following him?

Are there some walls that I still need to tear down?

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