Freeing Yourself (2)

So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free. John 8:36 NASB

Free – eleutheróō.  “To set free.”  The Greek verb is contrasted to being a slave.  To be set free is to be redeemed from slavery.  This is not merely a political act.  To be really free is to experience independent self-determination.  Kathleen Moore captures the idea: “Life is not something we go through or that happens to us; it’s something we create by our decisions.”[1]

To be free is to be able to make your own decisions—and, of course, willingly live with the consequences.

It seems so logical.  Of course, we all want to be self-determined (really?).  We want to be free to decide what we will do, how we will live, love, and learn.  At least that’s what we say.  But the world (that external environment) doesn’t always accommodate us.  In fact, it seems as though the society hinders free-thinking, free-acting people.  Mandatory regulations in the name of what’s best for everyone impinges what’s good for me.  And sometimes compromise is the best we can get.  But external freedom isn’t the real issue, is it?

The problem is that we are infected by our past.  Just as people who left Egypt continued to act according to their experience in Egypt, so we continue to act on the basis of our prior slavery.  We have slavery DNA in our systems.  That’s why the biblical path to freedom does not travel along the road of independence.  We don’t know where that road is.  We travel the road we know, the road full of slavery DNA ruts.  And once in the rut, it is difficult to get out.  What the Bible suggests is a different kind of slavery—slavery to the King whose road leads to independent self-determination—eventually.  Moses knew the people did not have the will to crawl out of the rut.  He knew that the moment he descended from the mountain.  I suspect we don’t have “crawl” ability either.  Perhaps that why we find it acceptable to accommodate to external restraints.  We don’t buck the system because internally, secretly, we are the system.

Fortunately, God knows this.  He doesn’t exterminate us for lack of transformation.  He leads us out, often one excruciating painful step at a time, but always in the direction of becoming human, becoming independently self-governing voluntary servants (not slaves) of the King.  You see, there is no purpose staying a slave.  Slavery is but a step on the way to servant, which is but a step on the way to friend, which is but a step on the way to son or daughter.  God knows that goal, no matter how long the path to get there.  He desires human beings, those made in His image because they reflect His voluntary commitment to another.  Freeing yourself comes at the end of the road.  Leaving slavery DNA behind comes with each step.

“Now, with God’s help, I shall become myself.”  Søren Kierkegaard

Topical Index:  freedom, slavery, Kierkegaard, eleutheróō, John 8:36

[1] Kathleen Dean Moore, If Your House Is On Fire