Freedom and Obedience

What it looked like when my friend started our fire

Like most red blooded American males, I love starting bonfires and burning stuff(legally!!).  The bigger the bonfire, the better.  One of my favorite memories is a big party I threw at my parents house in college and we had built a giant pile of wood and rubbish...then we doused it with gasoline....I know terrible idea...and my friend Matt did the honors of lighting it on fire.

He was being "safe" by lighting a long stick on fire and slowly getting it closer and closer to the gasoline soaked pile.  There was a moment of delay as he touched the burning end of the stick to the pile where nothing happened, and then...

WOOOSSSHHHHHHH

A giant fireball exploded AROUND Matt as the gasoline fumes and the pile all lit at the same time.  There was an audible boom that could be heard a few houses away.  Luckily Matt only lost some arm hair.  Do not try this at your own home though.

The woooosshhhh and the boom were the sounds of the oxygen being rapidly consumed from the surrounding area and the collapse of air to fill the void left by the hunger of the fire for air.

Which seems so contradictory on the surface.  If you ever tried to light a candle while a kid keeps blowing at it, you know that the air puts it out.  Yet, if you place a flame in an airless vacuum it will immediately die.

Air might seem like an enemy to fire, but without it, there is no fire.  It was actually one of the saddest discoveries of my youth that all the amazing explosions in Star Wars were completely fictional because there wouldn't be a fiery ball of death in the airless vacuum of space(not to mention no lightsabers possible either)

In the same way freedom only truly exists where it is balanced with obedience.

There is this idea that rules or standards are by definition limiting on freedom.  If you tell me "no" it is in some way directly conflicting with my autonomous free will and squashing my freedom.  So much of our western civilizations rot today is the outflow of the idea that my own personal feelings, desires, "truth", is all that matters and anyone who gets in the way of that is oppressive in some capacity.  When the truth is that doing whatever you want is the most oppressive life you could imagine.

Let me easily prove it.

Every choice that you make has intended and UNINTENDED consequences.  It doesn't matter what you intended, you can't help but be faced with the multiplying effect of unintended consequences of every choice you make.

Example 1:  I am "free" to jump off the top of a tall building.
Intended Consequence: I want to feel the thrill and rush of the wind.
Unintended Consequence:  I am now dead.  Freedom is completely gone

Example 2:  I am "free" to cheat in my math class
Intended Consequence:  I get a better grade
Unintended Consequence:  I either get caught and get kicked out/flunk, OR, I simply never learn the actual material and limit my future self from all that I could have been capable of.

Example 3:  I am "free" to steal something from you
Intended Consequence:  I get something for nothing
Unintended Consequence:  You got jail and lose a whole bunch of freedom.

While those might seem like overly simplistic examples, think about it just a bit.  When we operate in a way that doesn't take into account the world around us, often what feels initially like freedom becomes the swinging door of the jail cell we have constructed for ourselves.

To truly maximize freedom is not about doing as much as we could possibly imagine we should be "allowed" to do, but to instead understand the reality of the world in which we live and operate within the bounds of what is true.

In Galatians 5:1 we are told,

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.   

Perhaps you are tempted to say Jesus WANTS me to be FREE.  What is this all about obedience Adam??

When Paul closes this statement with, "a yoke of slavery", he isn't talking about people giving you rules.  He is talking about living a life for sin.  Jesus came to give us freedom, not to do whatever we can come up with, but to instead experience the freedom to do what we are actually made for in this life and for eternity.  When we live according to sin, in opposition to God's word, it often feels free at first, but it is ultimately a yoke of slavery that slowly removes the freedom from your life that you thought you were getting.

Jesus came to give us hope FOR obedience, and it is an obedience that provides FREEDOM.

James puts it this way in James 1:25

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it--not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it--they will be blessed in what they do.

The LAW(God's word) GIVES freedom.  Not just the hearing of it, but in the DOING of God's word.  Without the oxygen of life that is breathed into us that is Godly obedience we are left with a false freedom, one that ultimately enslaves and takes away any hopes we might have to be truly free.

God's law is good.  And it isn't a bunch of arbitrary rules because God is a killjoy, but because God made you.  He knows you better than you know yourself.

And He knows that you are made for more than what you see in front of you today.

But the choices you make today impact not just tomorrow, but all your tomorrows.

Exercising your freedom in conflict with God's truth is like ignoring gravity because you think you deserve to feel the wind blow through your hair after jumping off a tall building.  It WILL be thrilling at first.

Yet that freedom ends in a fall that will end in a markedly unfree sort of way.

One of the joys of parenting is seeing this principle play out in small ways with children.  They often do not want to trust you when it comes to certain tasks or skills.  As if they, after 4 years of age, know much better what it takes to ride a bike then their ancient parent does.  They WANT to ride the bike, they want to have that fun.  And you want it for them too.

But they struggle with trusting you.  Just like we struggle with trusting God.  They struggle believing you.  Like we struggle believing God.

And then, they accept your help and they do things the right way, they follow the steps.  And you can see the joy that overtakes them when they whip down the driveway the first time on their own and realize a whole new world of freedom has opened up before them.

Too bad they don't remember that life lesson the next time you are trying to help them with something difficult ;)

Our freedom as people, image bearers of God, is like that.  We want to resist God's truth.  We say, no, that can't be freedom, that sounds too restrictive, too overbearing.  Yet, when we truly and fully let God have his way and trust him, a whole new world of freedom opens up before us.

There is no fire without oxygen.

There is no freedom without obedience.