True Freedom

Back in my direct marketing days, we had a four-letter word that could magically transform the most mundane offer into a gold mine.  You didn’t just say the word; you shouted it – bold-faced, all caps, bright colors, multiple exclamation marks, the works.  The magic word is: FREE!!!!

It is perhaps the most attractive word in the English language.  Who doesn’t want something for free?  Who doesn’t want to be free?  Who doesn’t envy those of us who live in the land of free?  We are free to worship as we please, we are free to assemble, free to petition, free to speak, free to publish anything we want, free to bear arms, and free to vote for whomever or whatever we please.  If we put our minds to it, we could probably double or triple this list of the freedoms we enjoy.  What more could we ask?

Yet even these freedoms are not absolute.  Freedom of religion does not give me the right to practice human sacrifice.  Freedom of speech does not allow me to slander my neighbor or engage in hate speech.  Freedom of the press does not allow me to libel.  Freedom to bear arms does not allow me to own nuclear weapons, and our current angst is how much more limited that right should be.  We live in a finite, bounded world, where even freedom must have some limits.

Thus, despite these freedoms, I often feel trapped.  The mortgage, the credit cards, the car loan and never-ending list of bills need my attention, so I can’t really get everything I want.  Maybe if I won the lottery…but no sooner do I get one thing, then I need another.  Get that, and there is yet one more thing.

Despite the freedoms that I have, I can be filled with fear – fear that I may not measure up, fear that others will think me silly or stupid, fear that I may lose what little I have, fear for my family’s safety or my children’s futures. It’s just another never-ending list.

My life would be a grasping, groveling, cowering death but for one thing.  Jesus reminds me this morning that the truth will set me free.  The truth is that there is an all-powerful, all-gracious, eternal and infinite God who created me, who cares for me, who loves me, who has saves me not for what I have done or what I have earned, but simply for who I am – one created in the very image of this all-loving God.   And when I can set this truth firmly in my heart, I gain freedom that cannot come in a glossy piece of mail, is not available by 800-number, and cannot be guaranteed by any constitution or legislature on earth. 

It is not a freedom to do something; it is a freedom from something.  It is freedom from want, freedom from fear.

Who can want who already knows the infinite love of God?  Who can fear who sees in the crucifix the unconditional love of God?   Who can want or fear who places their trust in this all-merciful, all-powerful God?

So, I may still want and I may still fear, but only when I lose sight of Jesus.  For Jesus shows me the folly of earthly freedoms that can never guarantee my safety and earthly possessions that can never completely satisfy.  Jesus shields me from the fires of life and shepherds me to absolute safety.  Jesus saves me and opens for me the kingdom of God, the eternal land of plenty.  Jesus leads me from death to life.

Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.