God's Plan of Freedom Is Bigger Than You Think

What are the bars that surround you? Not the Mozee Inn down on the corner; I mean the things you feel are holding you back, infringing on your freedom. For instance, when I retired, I wanted to write a book. I envisioned sitting in my pjs with a piping hot bowl of joe, rain falling on the tin roof of our cabin and deer taking cover in the trees waaay at the end of our property. It turned out, there were a few things keeping me from that dream. A) We don't live in a cabin with a tin roof, B) the only thing at the end of our property is another property and, C) my mother. Mom was living with us at the time, and her condition was deteriorating, making it harder to care for her. Honestly, I was really angry about that. Day after day, the same thing. Mom watching me constantly, nervous if I left the room for more than a minute. The tapping, the whooshing, the wandering; inside, outside, always restless. It was maddening, and I felt trapped. Sometimes, as I worked, she'd whistle to get my attention, stare at me quizzically, and I'd wait for what seemed like hours for her to formulate the words to a question that never came. I prayed for Mom to be healed --most times, for my own convenience. I prayed for the upset to stop. I prayed for stability. I prayed for peace. I prayed for sanity. I prayed to be free. But the things I thought were holding me back were nothing compared to the things that really kept me in prison.

The bars that surrounded me were anger and resentment, steel fixed in my mind and cemented in place by the lies I told myself --that this was not what I had planned and, therefore, not what should be; that this was unfair to me; that I was alone and infringed upon, my life had been stolen from me --and worse than all that --that I deserved better. The bars that held me were of my own doing and were far worse than those I thought kept me bound. I failed to realize just how debilitating my unsanctified and unchecked thoughts were. At a time --a difficult time --when I needed the power of the Holy Spirit to carry me, the self-pitying and embittered thoughts I entertained robbed me of the freedom of surrender. Christina Dronen, in her book, Parenting in Christ says, “We surrender not as defeated heroes, but as refugees, escaping a life of slavery, starvation, and abuse. We surrender not for fear or threat, but in hope that the One to whom we surrender has a better life for us.” Surrender to God's plan frees us from the tyranny of this world and its ruler, and entrusts us to the care of a loving, faithful King of all kings who loves us and desires to transform us into the perfect likeness of His Son.

So often we seethe and moan about financial burdens or physical ailments; but the anger that leads to compulsive spending or the unforgiveness are the real bonds from which God wants to liberate us. We strive for the things moths devour and corrosion disfigures, thinking they will somehow allow us to rise above the poverty in which we find our spirits; but it's the meekness and purity of heart found only in Jesus that will set us free. We look around at the "nothingness" that is our lives, the turmoil that is our relationships, and we want to escape; but our greatest victory is found in the treasure of God's Word we've allowed to remain unopened, unread, and unlived at the back of our nightstand drawer. We stress over our homes, our families, our physical well-being, somehow imagining the worst that can happen will happen on this side of our obituary, but we forget the eternal nature of each and every moment. We are looking to escape prisons that are far too small, fragile, ridiculously benign to a God like Yahweh; and we pay too little attention to the condition of our spirits, bound by chains of death and darkness. Imagine that! To be imprisoned behind iron bars, shackled to great stones, but terrified and pleading to be free of the web a spider has spun at our feet through the night. It makes no sense.

But this is what humanity does. We look for more of the world when Jesus holds out all of eternity to us. We want a vacation. We want a bigger house. We want a newer car. Our spirits languish in prisons of self-centeredness. We beg for God to heal us, release us from earthly circumstances; we line the pockets of doctors and lawyers, while our hearts lie bound by unforgiveness and unrepentance. We protect our investments, our families, our reputations, our lives, while our eternity goes unaddressed and unprepared for. We are in shackles behind iron bars fretting over gossamer threads woven around our fingers. It would be silliness if it wasn't such great sadness. God wants to free us from the big things, the real problems, the true bonds, the spiritual hang-ups.

I'm not against the desire to do better, to be better, to have better in order that we might serve and worship better. I'm not saying we should live with sickness and never seek the Lord's blessed healing. I'm not implying we should be reckless and spendthrift with all God has graciously given us, that we should never save for the future. But we should rightly understand the weight of our condition. We should rightly desire to see God's will revealed and bearing fruit. We should rightly examine our own motives. We should see the gloriousness with which Jesus came and died and was resurrected, and for what purpose. We should seek the precious and pleasurable things of this life for the purposes of bringing glory to God's name. We should do well fundamentally for the kingdom of the One who freed us to live in it. That is freedom. And that is freedom from the things that truly impede and imprison us.