When I mentioned to my husband that I was thinking of writing for 31 days on finding freedom, he said ‘What exactly does that mean? That could be anything. You could be writing for 31 days on being an American!’ He then grinned and mumbled something about ‘finding freedom in the bedroom’, which I won’t repeat because I pretended not to hear him.
After I resisted the urge to bean him in the head with the sofa cushion, I realized that he might have a point. Freedom is a very broad topic, and 31 days is a long time to write about it. My hope is that I’ll begin to narrow it down to something manageable and meaningful over the next month.
Of one thing I am sure, that buried beneath our ribs beats a heart that longs to live free, unrestrained, independent. This desire has been with us from the very beginning, where in the Garden, the first man and woman were created to feel the weight of free will. For some of us, free will is a license to do whatever we want, whenever we want regardless of what man or God has to say about it. For others of us, free will gets caught and tangled up in the rules, the right and wrong, the black and white.
I wrestle with the latter, finding myself regularly caught up in keeping the rules while inside my chest, my heart continues to pound out the beat of longing. The longing for freedom never goes away no matter how many rules try to break it or how many rules we try to break.
I want to remind myself this month that I am free, and that freedom doesn’t lie in legalism or permissiveness. Freedom lies in the precious place of peace between the two. I hope you’ll join me there.
