Alive, but Not Yet Unbound.
When familiar pressures follow us into new seasons and what Jesus reveals about the unbinding that comes next.
Over time, leaders are called into new seasons.
A new chapter opens, and you feel life rising.
You feel more yourself.
You feel alive again.
And yet, even as new seasons open, familiar patterns linger.
The stress.
The pressure.
The old ways of thinking.
They don’t dissolve just because the work has changed.
Alive, but Not Yet Released
In John’s Gospel, Lazarus comes out of the tomb alive
yet still wrapped in his burial cloth.
He had been raised,
but not yet released.
Alive, but not yet unbound.
Leaders in transition often remain in the bindings of their past.
The season has changed.
We step into new life,
yet still carry the residue of the old one.
What Sociology and Leadership Research Reveal
A pattern sociologists call role residue describes this reality well.
Role residue refers to the parts of a former role that stay attached to us
long after the role itself has ended.
Organizational behavior studies echo this:
leaders often continue acting from old responsibilities,
old instincts,
and old pressures
even when the new context no longer requires them.
The same behaviors that once had purpose
can quietly bind us in the next season.
My Own Unbinding
I’ve felt this in my own transitions.
There was freedom in the releasing.
I was alive.
But my instincts had not yet caught up.
My mind still anticipated pressures that were no longer present.
My body still braced for rhythms that no longer existed.
My leadership reflexes still carried the imprint of the last season.
I was resurrected into a new chapter
while still wrapped in the cloth of the old one.
The Hardest Bindings to Notice
The hardest bindings are the ones that feel normal.
The ones that once served us.
The ones that helped us succeed.
The ones that kept us safe.
We don’t question them
because they’re familiar.
We don’t release them
because we’re still alive.
But being alive is not the same as being unbound.
What Jesus Does Next
When Lazarus emerged, Jesus didn’t say,
“You’re good now. Get on with it.”
He said,
“Unbind him, and let him go.”
The miracle brought him to life.
The unbinding released him to live.
This is the part leadership transitions rarely teach us:
Resurrection starts at the tomb,
but freedom starts in the unwrapping.
The Invitation for Leaders
Maybe you’re in a new season.
Maybe God has brought you out
from burnout,
from performance,
from pressure,
from the grind of proving.
You’re alive in ways you haven’t been in years.
But are you unbound?
Are you still leading with old instincts?
Still absorbing pressure that no longer belongs to you?
Still acting from patterns built in yesterday’s fire?
Are you resurrected but wrapped?
Where Unbinding Begins
Unbinding begins with noticing.
Where am I still carrying what no longer fits?
Which expectations are residue, not reality?
Which instincts belong to the old season, not this one?
And then
slowly, gently, faithfully
we let Jesus do what He always does next:
unwrap the parts of us still tied to yesterday.
Not to shame us.
But to free us.
Alive, and Becoming Unbound
New seasons require more than arrival.
They require release.
The work of unbinding is not a step backward,
it is the necessary movement
that allows us to walk forward.
Not wrapped.
Not restrained.
Not tethered to what once was.
Alive.
Unbound.
And free to go where we are called next.