My friend’s mom died recently. In her late 80’s she’d been a nursing home for 44 months. Another friend celebrates today (how macabre!) the five year anniversary of her dad being medevac’d to the hospital on he eve of his birthday. The hospital he ended up dying in months later. Others I know are dealing with the death of their adult son. Two lifelong friends of my parents are entering the long good-bye, as Alzheimer’s has been called. And several younger friends are wrestling with mental illness. Someone else I know is dealing with a supervisor who is a minion of Satan (OK, that may be harsh, but you get my point). All love Jesus dearly.
In the midst of this hear the echo Paul’s words to the Galatians.
It is for freedom you have been set free.
Is this a cosmic joke? Or worse, an empty promise? Do their lives ring of freedom?
Are we believers just fooling ourselves?
These are the questions I ask. You’ve probably had similar ones. How do we reconcile the freedom we at times know,
Or hope,
Or cling to like a bouy in choppy waters
With the slavery we still experience?
Or at best, the lack of freedom.
To our detriment we have been conditioned by the church and the magazines at the check-out line that simple solutions can be offered with a straight face. Three points, five tips, seven sassy suggestions. Suffering and freedom tied up with a shiny bow.
I come to you, knowing you are probably as weary of this part of our culture as I am. And yet. And yet, may I offer two observations on this paradox? This tension I feel within myself when it comes to our freedom in Christ?
As I have tossed these questions around and come at them from this angle and than that angle I’ve realized that I often associate freedom with the idea of freedom from and ignore freedom to and freedom for. Freedom surely means freedom from pain and suffering, right? Or freedom from constraints or restrictions. Those are the freedoms my mind goes to first.
But God is slowing me down and broaden the idea of freedom to include freedom to have the outside reality be different than the inside experience. A loved one may die and grief can be mixed with relief without someone being a horrible person. A disease may be an invitation for friends and family to be intentional with the time left.
I can see the cultural influences on my thinking of freedom. God placed us in cultural context and it’s OK to be influenced by our cultures, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water! The problem isn’t the cultural influences, instead it is unexamined influences that can lead to limited understandings. It’s when we step back and ask “in what ways” and “how” have I been influenced and ask God to show us a more excellent way that he will! He will enlarge, correct, and confirm. This is the journey of growing as a believer.
But no matter how much we mature, there are simply going to be areas where the answer we are given is unsatisfactory in this life. When it comes to freedom, God has pointed out to me that already/not yet applies here as well.
Believers in Jesus are free and each believer can point to areas of their life where they are free in ways they weren’t before. But we still experience brokenness and live in broken systems. To say that we are completely free now is foolish talk. Even Paul said I do not do the things I want to do and the things I want to do, I don’t do. He is not yet completely free. And neither am I. And neither are you.
Freedom is already. Yes! Freedom is not yet. Yes! Already/not yet is big enough to hold the freedom we have while acknowledging the lack of freedom that is our current truth as well. It helps me to celebrate the freedom I have AND keep me pointed toward the ultimate freedom that is waiting for us.
Jesus isn’t a liar. But he’s also no simpleton and invites us to live our messy, beautiful lives in light of the freedom that will one day be completely ours.
Photo credit Glenn Euloth via flickr cc
Thank you. Your words meet me right where I am – longing for freedom, between times of freedom, yet somehow free . My inside experience and outside reality don’t seem to match up. Trusting there’s more to it than I can see.
Kristi, trusting with you! I know you are not alone in the insides and outsides not matching up! May you have been encouraged in some way recently to be reminded of it too!
YES! Enjoyed this read.
Well stated, Amy. The fact you have titled your blog The Messy Middle continually speaks volumes to me.
Satan & atheists would use this paradox against us, to say we’re talking ourselves into belief. That is the lie. I don’t know if this is against your blog ‘rules’ if such exists, but I recently finished reading The Invisible War by Donald Grey Barnhouse published in 1965. What an eye-opener on the panorama of the conflict between good and evil! The first chapter may challenge some but Dr. Rigsby, retired Hebrew Prof Biola University assures me the author’s interpretation of the Hebrew is on target and that he himself has believed this for many years. I did not read it for pleasure (although it was), I but paced myself with Bible in lap & pen at the ready. It expanded my understanding of who the real liar is and his tactics and how I, with best of intentions, can fall right into the trap of the liar. Sure hope I haven’t broken the rules of your blog.
Susan :) … no major rules (mainly just if someone is going to disagree with someone, be civil). And yes, I think some will hold this paradox against us. I also, sadly think that some within our ranks do not live with the paradox well and may have too simple (in my opinion) views as well. Thinking freedom (or whatever) is either all or it is nothing. I’m thankful for people like you!
Amy, what an article! I had the same sentiment when my mum passed away 8 years ago. I questioned His presence and if He is a true God, why didn’t He answer my cry for help? I remember I threw a bargain with Him…my life for my mum’s but it seems He didn’t hear me. I searched and searched, with my heart full of doubts and questions on whether there is God and If He acknowledges me as one of His creation. Then I met this Carmelite nun, cried my heart out, and when she handed me a crisp white hanky she said that it is a good thing that I have doubts because it is what makes me search. And she assured me that it is His plan, his work that I search for answers because in that way I will find Him and will appreciate Him more than in any other way. Thank you and God bless you.
My favorite ‘freedom to’ is freedom to love. Jesus gives me freedom to love with patience and kindness, tenderhearted forgiveness…everyone….where ever I go.
I have been reading a book about being free to love unconditionally. The point you make here I have been trying to put into words about our freedom to love and our inability to do so because we are a slave to our own desire to have our own way.
What I just said probably does not make any sense but, thanks for writing and giving a different perspective on our freedom in Christ. I love to think about our freedom to come.