Can freedom (Biblical, personal freedom) ever truly exist in one’s life? I’ve heard and believed all my life that knowing Christ, who is the ultimate Truth, will set us free. I’ve known Christ, and at times incredibly intimately nearly my whole life. I have also known addiction, people pleasing, fear, depression, rebellion, immense pain, unforgiveness, struggle, sin, disobedience, anger, self-hatred, and doubt. Some would say it is because of the fall. So, did that annihilate freedom? Can it still be found? I’ve known people well that seem to live in this freedom every day. They have won the battle with alcoholism, heartache, or sexual promiscuity. They have had real life struggles, and today they seem filled with joy as if those things never happened, yet when asked about them they are still very near in memory, and sometimes in pain, perhaps even regret. Still, they seem to possess something of freedom that I do not. Why?
Perhaps it is how we define freedom that makes the difference. I certainly do not believe the Bible to tell us that freedom is escape, be it from pain, or rejection, or trouble. In fact, it told us the complete opposite: “in this life you will have trouble” (John 16:33a). Yet, it also tells us that “….where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom: (2 Cor 3:17).
Webster defines freedom this way: the quality or state of being free: as a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b: liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another: independence c: the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous d: ease; facility e: the quality of being frank, open, or outspoken f: improper familiarity g: boldness of conception or execution h: unrestricted use
I often wonder if the people who are all smiles, all laughter and no tears, and seem to have Romans 8:28 tattooed on their forehead are really living in freedom, or are they just hiding their pain? In denial about their shame? I believe them to be some of the most addicted (to pleasing others, to hiding, to coping through denial-we all have our addictions), and lost of all because only in coming face-to-face with the reality of our failures, sins, hurts, shame – our broken humanness – can we then allow freedom to rise up from within those places. I heard it said that when it was asked of a monk why the Scriptures say to write the Words of God upon our hearts, and not in them the monk replied, “Because only when our hearts are broken can the words fall inside. “
Bolded are the definitions I find to be most accurate in the Christian life; in any life, but it only comes through relationship with Christ. If I am free from addiction then I have been released of the need for it, I am not coerced by it, nor am I constrained by it. It no longer holds power over me; I am not enslaved to it. The last bolded statement is what I believe to be the response by one who has experienced this freedom.
I believe one who is free to be painfully aware of one’s own failures, addictions, self-serving desires and actions, aware of one’s own woundedness, humanness and utter need for One greater than oneself, yet not to be enslaved to the addiction or hurt, not needing it to survive or to cope, being out from under its power – that is where I believe authenticity arises, and you are then able to truly be “frank, open, and outspoken.” I don’t mean outspoken like a protester, but outspoken in that one no longer has the need to hide parts of oneself, to feel ashamed, to be different on the outside than the real self on the inside, to present outwardly to people that which is only perceived as being acceptable, loveable, forgiveable.
I suppose I’m having trouble coming to terms with the fact that freedom does not mean that I won’t, possibly for the rest of my life struggle with the same things over and over again. Why else would Paul declare in such frustration that he does the things he doesn’t want to do, and can’t seem to do the things he knows he ought to do? We dare not say that Paul wasn’t “free,” and still his struggle remained. What if, church people, the thorn in Paul’s flesh was lust? What if it was depression? What if it was doubt? Would we still see Paul as this ever-faithful, never-doubting, always enduring Saint?
I wonder if God did not leave the thorn in Paul’s flesh ambiguous in His Word because we all share that thorn in one way or another. We do not know the reason for the thorn. Oh, sure we can speculate that it was to keep Paul humble or to teach him some sort of grand lesson. Whatever the thorn (or thorns) you or I may have I know one thing to be for certain: it stands as an ever-present and painful reminder that I NEED JESUS. I need him to lean on when the pain from the thorn is too intense. I need him to heal the wound around the thorn so that I do not react out of pain, and the pain does not consume and control me. I need him to give me a reason to keep going in spite of the thorn. I need him to help me learn how to live with the thorn, and not live because of the thorn. I need him to release me of the need to focus on the thorn, and instead to have the freedom to focus solely on him.
Paul’s thorn was given to him by God and it was there to stay. I believe we have God-given thorns, and we have thorns we have put in ourselves. Regardless of the reason, the thorns, at least the God-given ones remain. Paul had his thorn when he died. The reality of it never left him, and I’m quite certain the thorn, or the affects of it were not always hidden from others, yet Paul was free indeed.
Freedom is not the absence of things negative, but the eradication of the power to be bound by them, and the release to live beyond them.
