Freedom

I'm away speaking at a camp for high school students this week. The theme for the week is "Freedom." What a tough topic, huh? This is an interesting camp. Everyday we speak, pray, discuss, and praise about one topic. I supppose that by the end of the week the kids--and those of us charged with leading them--either discover something in the topic or are sick to death of it.

The problem with discussing Freedom is that as Americans we think we know what it is. The truth is that we don't. As a matter of fact, when you think of all the death, divorce, addiction, and psychological turmoil we experience, we are some of the most enslaved people in the history of the world.

The fact is we all serve a multitude of masters.

We think of Freedom in terms of the American Revolution or "Braveheart" (which is a favorite movie of mine), but those things are much more about autonomy and independence than true freedom.

The opposite can be true too, though. Some of us free where others might take the concept of Freedom, and like the Pharisees that Jesus fought, we construct a whole list of rules and regulations and other crap to hem people inside the walls where we want them to stay.

Neither of those is the freedom that Jesus died to give us.

If I had to try and define freedom I guess I would land somewhere near where Morpheus does when he meets Neo face-to-face in "The Matrix". Morpheus says, "I am offering you the truth."

That what freedom is to me--the truth. The truth about the meaning of life, the truth about where I came from and where I am going. And the truth that Jesus and Jesus alone is the truth.

Freedom is the ability to live fully in God's truth.Free from the false addiction of thinking you can do what you want when you want. And freedom from the false bondages of those few people inside religious institutions that want to shut down every thought and action but their own.

** I've got to run and take a picture now. Sorry of any misspellings our un-proofed work.