“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is freedom.” - Corinthians 3:17
This week I was faced with freedom found and freedom lost,
all in the span of forty eight hours. It matters not the how or why of the
freedom. If confessed the tale would prove quiet droll, I’m sure, and do little
more than subtract from the overall message of this blog. Namely that the very notion,
the pre-defined concept of freedom, when couched in human terms, is a prison.
Some of us think that we’ll find freedom in our country or
our friends or in the arms of the one we love. In many ways we do, but these
freedoms are fleeting. So we seek freedom in self-confidence, or sport, or
accomplishments. We find careers to chase and roles to fill. Our identity
becomes defined by those things we feel we need to obtain to be happy. Because
you have to be happy to be free, right?
Before long we wake up and realize that freedom is a want.
No different than money or fame, sex or power.
We spend days and nights feeding the want, instead of nourishing our
souls. As such, many of us find confusion, discontentment or disillusionment as
triple cousins of a constant sorrow.
Is it any wonder then that in going through life like this we
fail to truly seek, and thus do not find? We knock, but do not even wait for the
door to be opened. Then we blame anyone and everyone for our state of being and
when we run out of “them” to blame? We start blaming God.
Real freedom is more about this thing called surrender. It's the oddest thing, but only through surrendering do we actually find ourselves less captive. To everything.
