“You know, I couldn’t wait to be free. Five years is a LONG time. I know I deserved it, but I was so dumb. I thought all my problems would be over once I got done doing my time. This freedom stuff is a lot harder than I thought. It’s tougher than I ever dreamed.”
Ralph had been out of prison for three months when he shared those words with a support group for recently released inmates which was sponsored by a church in the community.
That evening, we were thinking and sharing about what “freedom” meant.
Curt was listening a lot, but saying very little. He had finished his sentence just the week before. After 15 years in prison, he described his “freedom experience” this way: “It’s like the biggest jet lag I could imagine. I mean, the world went on without me, and I’ll never catch up. Ever.”
Ralph had served as one of the prison chaplain’s assistants during his last two years of incarceration.
“You know what gets me through? Let me see if I can find it.” He reached under his chair for his Bible and opened it to a place marked with a well-worn bookmark. “Here it is, John, chapter eight. Listen and see what you think, ‘If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.’ Here’s the other one. ‘Jesus said, ‘I tell you most solemnly that anyone who chooses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave. A slave is a transient, who can’t come and go at will. The Son, though, has an established position, the run of the house. So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through.’”
Curt listened closely. “So what I hear you saying is, freedom is a great gift, but sticking to it’s the hard part. It that about it?”
“Yep. You got it, Curt. Exactly. Our old ways felt like freedom, but that was thinly disguised slavery to death-dealing ways. Not freedom, in fact, it was the exact opposite. Living in God’s truth, following Christ, that’s real freedom. But here’s the thing: some stuff in the world – you know what I’m talking about here, right? – That stuff will try to trick you into thinking God’s freedom is inconvenient, a pain in the, well, you get it. But real pain? That happens when you don’t claim the true freedom Christ offers you – and stick to it for all you’re worth.”
Curt nodded. “I get it. It’s what you stick to that defines who you are. Sticking to this freedom Christ offers, that defines me as a truly free guy. That about it?”
Ralph smiled. “That’s ALL of ‘it.’ No ‘about’ to it, Curt. Sticking to the freedom is ALL of ‘it.’”
Often the ways the world describes and defines “freedom” is quite different from the way Jesus defines it. Many would say that “freedom” means the right to do what you want, when you want, to whomever you want to do it to.
What Ralph, Curt and many others throughout time have discovered is that freedom defined in worldly terms is most times quite the opposite. That kind of “freedom” is actually quite the opposite. It is slavery — slavery to a self-centeredness which quickly takes over an entire life. This kind of deceptive “freedom” strangles joy and holy energy and replaces them with an insatiable ambition for personal gain and fame that takes over.
Then, all that’s left is a hollow shell which might look good from the outside, but is really empty and dead on the inside.
Jesus calls his first followers, and us, to seek and stick to the true, rock-solid, eternal freedom He offers. This is not a surface “freedom show.” His freedom is a deep down, soaked through and through, unshakable, unstoppable and eternal.
I’ll take that kind of freedom any day – and every day. How about you?