Are you living with Freedom?
“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.”
Did I ever tell you about my camp counselor days?
Before I became a pastor, I was a camp counselor at a family camp in California. I worked with the middle school and high school boys for most of the summer. Every week, we’d get fresh families in, and while the adults attended their own small groups, we led the students in our own small groups.
For me, the best part was near the end of the week when we’d play a huge game with all the students together. For us, it was a game called G.H.O.S.T. Kids would run around at night, throughout the camp looking to find all the letters to spell the word “Ghost”. It was a blast. We as counselors would run around tagging students with socks full of flour—excuse me, allegedly run around tagging students with socks full of flour (Hey, this was the early 2000s!) and the rule was, if you got tagged you’d be captured until you did something to earn your freedom back.
We devised all kinds of silly punishments to get free - but we were ruthless with the boys in our own groups. Sometimes we’d make them sing the alphabet backward, or have them skip in a circle singing "I’m a pretty princess” at the top of their lungs.
They all did it of course. Why? Because they were desperate to be free.
I don’t know about you but I want to cultivate as much freedom into my life as possible. I have small children, and having the freedom to choose what show I want to watch is a luxury I often times don’t have. Or having the freedom to eat a real meal and not chicken nuggets and fries. (Not that I would complain!) I don’t really want to be rich either, I just selfishly want the freedom to be able to get fast food whenever I want.
We love freedom. And for good reason.
People who are free have the opportunity to thrive and can have vision for their lives. When you have freedom you have hope.
Too often though we can experience a lack of freedom in life. We can feel stuck in our jobs, in a marriage, in a circumstance, in a financial situation that we believe limits our freedom to live like we want.
Sometimes we feel stuck in our ways or stuck because of a past hurt, or an unmet expectation. Maybe you’ve been disappointed by others so many times you’re afraid to trust again let alone hope that things will turn out alright. Perhaps you feel a lack of freedom as the Apostle Paul describes it,
“For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” - Romans 7:18
For myself, I have felt stuck lately. Stuck in my job, my career, my role as a dad. I have been feeling like I am making zero progress in any of it. I know the good I ought to do and can see in others the growth I desire, but I feel unable to reach it. Yet as I was reading back through some of my old journals I noticed that I have often had that burdensome feeling of being weighed down or stuck. I also read how God was always right there not just keeping the pace but setting it with me. He has shown up in my life and brought freedom from addiction and past hurts before. His word encourages us in this by saying,
“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
God actually wants us to experience freedom. This is not a freedom that says I get to do whatever I want but freedom from the things that so easily entangle us. I can tell when I’m not free by the attitude and emotions that control me when things don’t go my way. Cut off in traffic? Anger. Kid refusing to take a nap? Frustration. Those are just a few of the signs that I’m still enslaved to pride. In response, I must choose to run to the cross each day and surrender it all to Jesus, he is the one who brings life transformation. He is the one who brings freedom to the captive.
Are you free?
Maybe you’re not free yet, and maybe God is working on freeing you up (just like me) from so many things. I’ll close with an old preacher’s story I found. I hope it encourages you.
One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. So he invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well.
At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement, he quieted down. A few shovelloads later, the farmer finally looked down the well and was astonished at what he saw.
With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up.
Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off.
What I love about that story is that the very thing that was originally burying the donkey ended up being the ground the donkey used to find freedom. I don’t know where you’re at but I am a living testimony to the fact that God can free you up. You might be feeling buried. You might believe life has thrown too much on your back. But God wants to take the dirt in your life, shake it off of you, and use it as the platform for you to step up and into the future that he has for you.
