Devotion 387 - freedom

I cry when I hear the trumpet playing taps.  I cry when I hear the singing of the National Anthem. 

I go to every parade with a pocket full of tissues. 

There is something about nostalgia and patriotism.

I love the 4^th of July.  I love Bastille Day in France.  I have come to love Cinco de Mayo.  It is part of who we are, where we come from and how we have learned to embrace freedom.

I don’t understand what it is to fight for my country.  And I am completely baffled by those who ignore the gift of freedom. 

I cannot imagine hating my country and it hurts me to the very core those that would scheme against it.

I have lived for a very brief time across the ocean and it shook me to know there were no congressmen to call, and my own flag to fly. I walk through airports and fight the notion to hug every service man and women I see. 

It has emptied me to see how throngs of people especially this election year have walked away from who we are and what we have.

Freedom

It seems so much of what we were is slipping away, a love of country, a thirst for freedom and a passion for patriotism.

Perhaps this too is all part of God’s plan.  Perhaps things need to fall out of our grasp, to realize what it is we had and what we were supposed to treasure.

Perhaps He is allowing this change, this fracturing of freedom so that we will hold fast to the first freedom, the Holy freedom, the one that came not at the hand of soldiers but through the hands, feet and heart of a Savior.

What if we embraced that freedom, His sanctified freedom first? What if complete freedom in Him is how we lived?

If we chose freedom, His freedom, we would never be alone.  In the face of friends that forsake and family that forgets, He remains and loneliness retreats. 

We would never have to wonder if we are loved.  In our ugliest, most unlovely moment, He lends us the title of “masterpiece.”

We would never have to wonder if we are good enough as we are measured by the yardstick of an eternal, everlasting love.

We would never have to fear.  The very presence of fear would be thwarted by the wielding sword of freedom.

And we would never worry.  The overwhelming nature of His goodness would quell our frantic hearts and our distressed minds.

How dear one do we not embrace this freedom?

How do we live in our self-made prisons?

 What does your prison look like?

Mine is built with bars of self-sufficiency and surrounded by walls of self-doubt.   They are solid and seemingly impenetrable.  The drive to listen to my own desires is exhausting.  It is a slow death of frustration and anxiety.    

It is said that all natural life starts with pain.  The supernatural life started with death.  By His death, we are alive in the extraordinary dance of freedom. 

With the most extraordinary grace, He lends us a Spirit who guides us, a Father who adores us and a Savior who handed us the secret to eternal joy.  Surrender.

Embrace freedom dear one.  Dance in it and wear it proudly;  its color will set you apart and its light will lead the fellow freedom fighters to find their joy.

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