While I'm certainly thankful to live in a free country, my gratitude for my freedom comes from a much deeper place. My freedom is freedom from the attitude of "Free to Be, You and Me." This adage of recent history brought with it a wave of people standing up for their individuality. In some ways, it liberated us to walk our own path. In others, it turned us into selfish brats. There is certainly value is allowing my God-given talents and giftings to grow and blossom. But there is not freedom at all in living a life dictated by my culture, my selfishness, my greed and pride.
Free from myself (old man), free to become like Christ (new creation), free to walk daily in God's grace and to let the fruits of the Spirit grow in me, not because I'm checking them off the TO DO list, but because they are the natural outgrowth of a life lived in the King's garden.
I have stood in the slave castle dungeons of Ghana, imagined what it must have been like to be crammed in the small, dark, filthy, sweltering room, a piece of chattle alongside many others. I have peered through the narrow opening of the door of no return, where the slaves were forced onto ships to a voyage and a life so much worse than anything they could imagine. I have sung their words, "I'll fly away. When I die, Hallelujah by and by, I'll fly away." Their bodies were chained, but their souls were free.
How blessed am I to have both.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1
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