Day 3171 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Galatians 5:1 NIV

Freedom's always had this rather impressive and pressing precedent present among a person's present priorities. Makes you wonder how or why so few still fail to find it.

And yes, I sadly must include myself among the most who've not yet found it in the fullness in which it's been given.

See, freedom is this idea of an ideal life lived lacking burden. It's an opportunity to exit from the existence we've known under the control of everything and everyone and to instead exist without oversight from those who we ought to know by now aren't looking out for our best interests. Freedom ushers in these thoughts, these feelings, these rather emotional emotions that set ablaze these oceans of blood coursing through our all but lifeless veins.

In short, freedom is in every way part of the way in which we were made to walk, to talk, to live, to breathe, to be.

But alas we've grown up hearing this opposing idea of a false freedom that has us convinced that we have to find it. It's become a pursuit, this ideal that's always just out of reach, keeping us reaching for more thinking that inside more of something we'll finally find the fullness of freedom's purpose. That if we gain everything, then needing nothing, we'll have found freedom.

And thus we've fallen for what's one of the oldest deceptions in the devil's dictionary of dangerous dichotomy: Quantity over quality.

Because there’s a clearly defined quality to freedom that I fear we’ve either missed or misunderstood. Indeed, what is there of such supreme worth that the Maker of Heaven and earth would come down here just to give His life for a bunch of heathens to have? Freedom. He chose to die to set us free from who we’d become thinking that freedom meant only the ability to do as we please.

But see, that entirely common outlook is simply not freedom. No, living only to do as we please is just this idea of freedom that enslaves us to ourselves and our desires. And simply put, we can do that without anyone having to give their life! Because we have done that. We’ve mastered that. We’ve gone so far as to make that the widespread normal pursuit in life. To put ourselves first and deny any others even matter.

And that’s why we’ve still not found true freedom. Because as defined in Scripture, true freedom is to live life with an unrelenting desire to glorify God rather than gratify ourselves. To finally step into this awareness that our Father is not only aware of us but loves us so much that He doesn’t want us to remain apart from His fullness. To understand that His fullness is the only place true freedom exists, because it’s the one place our foolishness can’t exist.

What’s ironic, or idiotic depending on how you look at things, is that we’ve managed to miss that simplicity despite the fact that so much about faith, about life is by all accounts incredibly simple. Most things we come up against boil down to a simple choice between two opposing outcomes. Indeed, almost all of life could be lived leaning on a coin-flip to help us decide whether we go right or left. But inside our human insistence upon seeming intelligent, we've become a people who feel as though we have to over-complicate everything just so that we can boast in our ability for having then unraveled the mystery.

But beyond the barricades we build in order to sell ourselves as heroes who've overcome life's barriers there's this rather foolish tragedy of simple yet beautiful things lost to the complexity. Things such as freedom, peace, kindness, love built on the unrelenting foundation of truth's immovable nature. So many of life's greater gifts are counted as loss in exchange for our having the opportunity to claim we've found them at some point up ahead.

As if they've not all been given in a manner in which we needn't seek so that we'd not fail to find.

No, all of the cornerstones of a meaningful life have been given us in full and complete measure. In fact, our Father built them into us when He formed us from this soil upon which we now toil as if it were our own. We talked about that a day or two ago, this idea that our lives are our own, an idea clearly only befitting the belligerence of our arrogance. We need something that makes us look good, feel good, and what better than crafting a way of life all our own?

That would be wonderful if we were anywhere near decent at creating things. But in all honesty, with pride set aside, truth is that we're clearly far better at making a mockery of everything than we are at making a masterpiece. Should we ever venture to be bold enough to look through honest eyes, we could see that our pasts have already proven that it's not us upon whom we should lean in order to learn how to live a life that means something.

No, just like true freedom, we've lost far too much trying this our way to remain inside this assumption that our way will ever actually lead to anything.

Because if it could have, it would have by now. See, as I said up top, freedom is one of those things that's always taken a high place upon the priority lists of people. We all want to be free. All of us! We all want freedom from an untold array of things. Illness and injury. Fear and failure, with a secret failure to stop being afraid. Addiction and angst and anger and always assuming another issue is around the corner. Doubt and dread. Confusion and this incessant need to complain. Bad jobs, bad relationships, bad thoughts, bad experiences.

We all want to be set free from something. But if freedom is an ideal of shared importance spread across all of humanity, how is it that all of us billions throughout countless generations have still not stumbled upon it? Could it be only because we're just going about it all wrong?

Perhaps because freedom cannot be found until we find our faith in the Father of it.

See, God created us to be free. That's the image we see painted inside the opening of Scripture back in the beginning of Genesis. He created man in His image. Created us male and female that we might have a companion with whom to enjoy this creation He's created. Created us to simply tend His great Garden, enjoying the fruit of the labor we'd not yet learned to see as laborious or loathsome. Yes, He created us to simply be His people living in His presence, free from everything to which we've since chosen enslavement.

Why did we choose this path of such fleeting reward? Why do we still choose said path when given such a clearly opposing path to pick? What has happened in us, to us that has us so unwilling to accept the freedom He gives which is clearly so priceless that, having died to do so once more, He calls us back to that Garden where He got left behind by minds who accidentally learned something, leading mankind to forever think we know something?

That's our problem, the root of every mistake we make. It's that we think we know something. We think we know how to be God, but we think that only so we needn't bow before Him. We think we can find freedom, but only so that we have to keep looking in all the places that bring us all the glory. We assume that we can perfect our plans, our priorities, our preferences, our paths paved toward our opinions. But we only keep doing so all so that we don't have to surrender our will to His design.

And that's why we'll never find freedom outside of Him. Because it cannot exist without the forgiveness of our every moment thus far spent having to pretend He doesn't exist.

No friends, that mindset which we've all shared in varied measure is what's caused our calloused considerations and cauterized our care to be more than we've been. It's why we all struggle with so many different enslavements. Our own choices forge the chains which keep us bound in service of self, sadly thinking we're free because we find fun and our own understanding of fulfillment in the falsity of faithlessness.

If we had any real courage at all, which is yet another blessing clearly not given us of ourselves, we would be able to see the simple reasons for the struggles we have. But alas, we often tend to choose the other choice in this matter: To avoid having struggle. To deny having made poor decisions. To refuse to lose this lie that has us convinced that we're doing okay despite not doing anything that's getting us anywhere.

No, we're nowhere near freedom as long as we fail to admit that we've not yet chosen freedom having instead chosen everything else. Yes, we've chosen phone screens and the downtown scenes. Chosen alcohol and Tylenol. We've picked pornography and fake filters for socialized photography. We've given our hearts over to haughtiness and hovering above shallowness. Decided upon descending into the darkness rather than bearing our shame and racing into the Son where it could be washed away.

Why do we do the things we do knowing well by now the outcomes aren't what we want? We know one more drink might quench our thirst but that it can't quell the disquiet inside. One more hit might help us forget but it can't help us to forgive. Another night spent online might fill the void for that time but it won't make up for the lack of something real not waiting for us when we wake up.

No friends, I dare say that all of us are still far from freedom because we all still do things, say things, think things that keep us from it. Because if we were truly free inside the kind of freedom for which Christ set us free, we'd have this simplicity that didn't need anything, didn't want anything, didn't fear anything. We could truly soar on wings like eagles, unburdened by worry or regret, not chained to this hollowed ground with wings clipped and hearts hardening.

But that's the status quo we've come to know. Always looking, slaves to the search for something. What? It's different for all of us but we're all looking. Sadly it would seem that we're all still looking for freedom, which is only possible if we still haven't fully accepted that Christ is there and that He has set us free. And while it is just that simple, truth is that nothing can change until we choose to make that other choice. To choose the other path.

To lay down our lives and take up our cross and follow Him toward the freedom we've not yet found even though we've long insisted we have.

My point is that there is a simple life that is simply waiting for us to choose it. Our problem is that for that freedom found inside that simplicity to finally be found, we have to lose these lives in which we've failed to find it. We have to let go of everything we've done, everything we've wanted, everything we've failed or forgotten, everything. Because freedom is a lack a burden, a lack of weight, a shedding of sorrow and relinquishing of regret.

So, until we can do that, we'll forever find ourselves just short of the freedom in which He made us and toward which He calls us to now return.

Human nature will always be to choose enslavement to something. There's a sense of safety in it, if for nothing else than safety from blame should the outcomes not come out right. It keeps us safe from having to be the ones proven to have messed up. And so until we can bear the burden of admitting that that's pretty much all we've done, mess up, then we can't have that burden lifted by the One who lifted our guilt off our souls and took it all upon Himself that we might now take Himself upon us and live for the freedom He died to give.

Friends, I don't know where you've been or how long you've stayed or how much longer you're willing to find excuses to not move, but I know in my heart that there's something out there, up there that's worth chasing with every breathe we've remaining. That's definitely not to say that it's easy to find, just that it's simple to find. It's literally as simple as a turn, but the difficulty is found in what we must turn away from and learn to turn down all we’ve thus far raced toward.

Because it's to that way of life that we've always known that we're truly enslaved. And while freedom isn't hard to find, letting go of what we've found usually is.

But if we can have faith enough to believe that there might be something better than what we've already had or held, well, then we just might be able to take that courage one step further and actually find out. To let go. Indeed, may we let go of everything we don't need to hold onto so that we can take hold of the only thing that is worth clinging to. Not because it's easy to walk away from the world we know and the life we've lived inside it.

No, but because we believe that what He’s calling us to embrace is so priceless that He chose to give His own life in order for us to have it back.

That’s how special His freedom is. Because it helps us returned to living unashamed. Unafraid. Unwilling to back down from every fight that’s trying to keep us convinced this is our home. Unchained from this world with absolutely nothing left holding us here except an appreciation for the realization that He has us here for a reason.

Yes, until our lives are lived for Him alone, we’ll never know freedom. Because we’ll sadly still assume freedom means nothing more than a lack of responsibility or self-perceived limit to everything we’ve grown to want for ourselves.

This is not about us, but until we can admit that, we’ll forever be chained to living this life thinking otherwise and having to pretend we’re getting somewhere without even the freedom to move from where we’ve sadly chosen to stay.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold