God has been sending me on a journey for quite some time now to learn about what freedom really looks like. What does it mean to be truly free? On the surface, I suppose, it would mean to be liberated from physical constraints like chains or walls. But at the core, what does it really look like?
Here's what God has shown me so far.
The book, "The Great Divorce," by C.S. Lewis, tells a fictional story of a man who travels from hell to Heaven out of curiosity. He seems to have a good life in hell where he is able to do whatever he wants, think whatever he wants, and even create whatever he wants, but I think something deep inside of him longed for something more. In Heaven, he realizes that all the things he had obtained down in hell weren't real. Even he himself wasn't real in comparison to Heaven's realness. Because of that fact, it seemed to be very difficult to live in Heaven among the real things, because all he knew for so long was no longer considered reality. He hears Heaven's inhabitants telling other travelers from hell that the only way to true life is to let go of the fake things they've accumulated in hell and trade them for something real - a life in Heaven... A life of FREEDOM.
See, there's this illusion of freedom in hell - people there can do whatever they want, whenever they want, etc. And there's this illusion of bondage in Heaven, because to live there, people have to give up what they've been accumulating and live according to "rules."
They had it backward. We also have it backward.
There are the same illusions in the world today. Living in sin seems to be so freeing, because we don't have to adhere to any set of rules. We do what we want! To live according to God's standards seems to be so much work because we have to give up everything else. WRONG!!!!
(This is where my brain explosion occurred).
God created us in His image, right? Genesis 1:26 tells us this. God is good, right? So when He created us, we also were good. Sin entered the world and everything got messed up. We got freedom confused with bondage. We made God mad on a regular basis and we continue to defy Him today. BUT at our core, we are all STILL made in God's image. At our core we are good.
I think freedom happens when things work like they are designed to work. When a toy is working properly, it naturally does what it's supposed to do - it's free from brokenness. So for us, to be free from brokenness is to act like we were initially designed to act... Like God. When God created the Ten Commandments along with the rest of the rules and regulations in the Old Testament, it seemed like He was binding us to this set of rules and regulations. We had to give things up that we used to love. But, in reality, God was just reminding us how to be free... How to live fully, without bondage. He reminded us of this over and over and over again (see the Old Testament for proof of this) but we continued to choose bondage over freedom.
Every time we do something that reflects God's image, we are living like we are supposed to. We are working properly and therefore...
WE ARE FREE.
