It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1)
Freedom is neither the absence of responsibility nor the obsolescence of obstacles. The experience of true freedom requires the act of overcoming, for true freedom is only experienced as such when juxtaposed against the experience of oppression, of resistance, of restriction. If you’ve never gone through anything, you don’t know what freedom is. A man who has never struggled wouldn’t recognize true freedom if it walked up to him and slapped him in the face. But to the degree that you’ve struggled against the heavy hand of oppression and hardship, to that very degree you are able to identify freedom when you see it, and to savor its sweetness when you taste it.
My teenage years were characterized by a longing for freedom. I longed for the freedom to go wherever I wanted to go, the way my friends could. Instead, my movements were restricted by the rules of my parents. I longed for the freedom to eat whatever I wanted to eat, the way my friends could. But I was given only enough money to buy my lunch at school. While I never went hungry, my friends didn’t eat to satisfy their hunger. They ate for the sheer enjoyment of it.
During my teens I dreamed of having a car, so I could drive wherever I wanted to go, instead of waiting around for adults to drive me wherever they decided I should go. I dreamed of having a wife so that I could experience sexual freedom, instead of the sexual restraint that I learned to exhibit, while my friends flaunted their sexual exploits in my face day after day. During my teenage years, I longed for freedom.
In my twenties, I obtained all of the freedoms that I longed for in my teens. I got my own car, I worked jobs that paid me enough to drive where I wanted to drive and to eat what I wanted to eat, and I got married. All of that was great! But I was so busy . . . working part time, going to school full time, being a husband . . . I bucked against the responsibilities that were concomitant with my newfound freedoms. While I longed for freedom in my teens, I longed for leisure in my twenties. I felt like I was so busy and that so much was expected of me. I just wanted to have no responsibilities, no expectations over my head. I wanted the freedom to enjoy the freedoms that I had obtained as an adult.
My thirties have been characterized by a new kind of freedom, and in fact I believe it is a more mature version of freedom. For in my thirties I have longed for the freedom that only comes through discipline and restraint. I now long for the freedom to make a contribution to the world, the freedom to overcome all obstacles that stand in the way of my work. I no longer long to be free from my responsibilities, but to be free to fully live up to them. I no longer long for leisure, I long for self-mastery.
I used to long for the freedom to do nothing, to pursue entertainment, to drink deeply from the well of pleasure. But now I long to do something meaningful, to accomplish something worth living for, and to contribute something worth dying for. That’s true freedom! The freedom to envision a better future, to pursue that future with all of my might, and to obtain it for myself, my family, my church, my sons and daughter . . . for the world!
What kind of freedom are you longing for? Make sure it is the kind of freedom that is both worth living for and worth dying for. Only then is it worth longing for.
