Freedom

When do you feel the freest?

Is freedom being tucked away in the corner of your favorite coffee shop with a good book and a nice view?

Maybe you feel the freest walking out of work on Fridays or when your spouse takes the kids so you can have some me-time.

Freedom is something that we all value, and would place high on our priority list of things essential to a good life. However, each person’s interpretation of freedom will be vocalized differently based upon their current life circumstances.

Remember when you were five years old? Most of us had the same idea of what ultimate freedom would look like, and it involved two things – staying up late and not having to eat anything other than candy.

We thought life would be perfect if we could just have those two things.

I have yet to meet any child that has attained the true five-year old’s state of nirvana, but they all keep hoping for it.

As adults, we can look back and appreciate that our parental oversight didn’t allow us the freedom we desired as five-year-olds. Keeping us from that freedom is evident because we still have most of our teeth and can use alarm clocks.

It’s fun to joke about, but honestly, as a 5-year-old, none of us possessed the maturity required to have unlimited access to candy and a bedtime of our own choosing.

How many 20-year-olds, 40-year-olds, and 60-year-olds, have set a freedom standard ahead of them that they think will make life perfect? It may not be candy and late bedtimes anymore, but are we idolizing freedoms we lack the proper maturity to access?

Well, that was presumptive of you, AJ.

I know, but I am trying to communicate that our Father remains a good and faithful Father throughout our entire lives. Not only does He protect us and the access we have to certain things when we are 5, but He provides the same protection when we are 85.

He wants our souls to prosper, which is why I feel so strongly that there is freedom in the temporary.

God is abundantly gracious to give us so many temporaries in this life.

Today is temporary. Tonight is temporary. Your age is temporary. School is temporary. You being a broke college student is temporary. You being a parent to toddlers is temporary. You being a parent to teenagers is temporary.

Can I get an Amen?!?!

Our lives are strung together by one temporary season followed by another temporary season, and we have two choices. We can choose to focus on the idols of freedom we have carved for ourselves and feel as if we are slaves to all the changing circumstances in our lives.

Or

We can look to scripture and remember that who the Son sets free is free indeed (John 8:36), and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:15)

You see, each temporary moment has great freedom within it when we stay focused on His true freedom instead of the idols we call freedom.

In His freedom, we gain in maturity for the season He will call us into next.

Yes, parenting toddlers is challenging, but it will pass. So, while you have the season in your hand, freely enjoy the moments of play and sweet kid giggles. Appreciate that you get to grow in your maturity to parent while your child is growing. Can you imagine if we birthed out teenagers from the get-go?

When you realize that each moment in life shall pass whether you want it to or not, it frees you to appreciate the work God is doing in each of those moments.

Galatians 5:1 ESV - For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

1 Peter 2:16 ESV - Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Galatians 5:13 ESV - For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Father, we praise You! We ask that You focus us on Your Son, the one trustworthy source of freedom. Let us not put our hope for freedom into anything else. We thank you that our lives are full of temporary moments that allow us to grow and mature continually into the person You have called us to be. In Jesus’ name, Amen!