Free to do what?

Do you ever wonder what this freedom in Christ means? The bills still need to get paid…and life continues with its pressures.

I started to say the bills keep piling up but immediately I saw Peter with a tax bill and Jesus telling him to fish for a coin…or is important to note that fishing was Peter’s chosen occupation. I wonder if sometimes we look for a miracle but God is waiting for us to pick up the proverbial fishing pole… probably a laptop.

So if it isn’t freedom from someone else’s expectations or schedule, then what is it?

I keep coming back to the garden of Eden. The lie that Eve and Adam believed was “God might not so I must.” That is what we are freed from…the hamster wheel of providing for ourselves. Peter didn’t say “I have a tax bill so I’m going to go fishing.” He took his problem to Jesus and asked for His solution. Jesus used Peter’s occupation to pay the bills this time…but another time? Who knows. Peter didn’t walk on water because he was good at it. He quickly learned that the Source of his ability was Jesus.

What are you trying so hard at today? What has you chained up?

In Galatians 5, Paul is talking about freedom. He says ‘don’t use freedom to serve the flesh.’ The freedom was from doing all the religious rituals to keep on God’s good side. However, sometimes we give up our religious rituals and find that our souls need calming. Instead of learning to lean into Jesus for His answers, we run to earthly rituals of self medication…gambling, alcohol, control of some sort or another. This isn’t freedom. It’s bondage.

Freedom looks like…letting God do it.

Let’s get practical. If you are having an attitude issue, you can choose to act like you don’t have an attitude issue…act happy and eventually you’ll believe it, right? The problem is that this typically covers the root cause and we too often turn to addictive behaviors to self medicate. What if, instead, we took the problem to God and waited…for His infilling to modify us. Instead of trying to fix the problem ourselves we reversed Eve’s actions and said “God has the authority to modify my attitude. I’m going to focus on Him.” (And acknowledged the issue while we wait.) Is it possible that love, joy, peace and patience might start to flow from us?

None of us is going to get it right all the time because this thing with God isn’t a skill set, it is a relationship. We have conflict in real relationships.

I wonder what would have happened if Eve talked to God about her thoughts instead of deciding it was up to her to fix it. I wonder, as the rush of the daily bombards me, what this relational conversation might look like for me.

Freedom means many things. Sometimes the bonds feel external. Sometimes they are within. Both are fixed by looking to God for His answers. After all, He’s in it with us.