If you haven’t picked up on it yet, this month’s posts have been focused on goals and resolutions (you can check out the other posts here, here, and here). You know one thing about goals and resolutions is they can make you feel like you’re losing some of your freedom. You commit to getting certain things done or eating a certain way or exercising and you find yourself with less freedom to do whatever you want in those areas. That can make you feel trapped, constricted, or both.
A False Definition of Freedom
Often, we (and the world around us) define freedom as being able to do whatever we want to. In some ways, that makes sense. Think about slaves. They’re not free because they can’t do what they want to do. They’re told what to do and they have to do it or there are unpleasant consequences. Nobody wants to be a slave.
The problem is that when we define freedom as doing whatever we want to do, we become slaves to ourselves. We are ruled by whatever it is we think/feel/believe we should do in a particular moment. That might sound nice, but sometimes the things that we think/feel/believe we should do in the moment will end up trapping us. If we think it sounds fun to try a highly addictive drug, we may find that we are enslaved by our own desires to experiencing that drug. That’s an extreme example, but you know what I’m getting at.
Being enslaved to ourselves is still being enslaved. No matter what you’re enslaved to, you’re still a slave. I don’t think that the true definition of freedom (or at least not a good, godly/healthy version of freedom) is being able to do whatever you what whenever you want. That just doesn’t seem to end well in most circumstances.
Christian Thoughts on Freedom
So how should we define freedom then? My favorite obscure French theologian, Jacques Ellul, says that true freedom is the ability to say no. This idea makes a decent amount of sense to me. It still keeps some of the good things about being able to do whatever you want (which does seem very free), but puts a boundary on it. If you can’t say no to a thing, you’re no longer free. Defining freedom this way shows addictions and being ruled by ourselves as the enslavement that they really are.
However, there’s another type of freedom that I heard illustrated once that goes beyond my obscure French theologian’s definition. Freedom also includes the ability to say yes. For example, you’re really only free to play the piano or not if you have the skills to play the piano. If I don’t know how to play an instrument, I have no freedom to really say yes or no to playing that instrument. I simply can’t do it. If I do know how to play, then I have the freedom either to play or not to play.
I think these two ideas really encompass what Christian freedom is all about. We have to be able to say no, but we also need to have the ability to say yes. In Christ, we not only have the ability to say no to certain temptations that we have, but we also have the ability to say yes to things that only God could equip us to say yes to. In both cases, we are allowing God to guide and help us in our saying yes and our saying no.
What Christian Freedom Really Means
I was listening to the Bible Project podcast recently (if you haven’t listened to it you should; it’s just two Bible nerds geeking out about the Bible, which is awesome if you’re into that sort of thing) and they were talking about this concept of Christian freedom. I can’t remember the quote of what they said exactly, but the essence of it was this: freedom in the Christian life is not just the ability to do whatever it is you want (that’s anarchy anyway). Rather, Christian freedom is the process of God freeing you to be who he uniquely created you to be. The more confidence you have in what God is doing in you, the greater freedom you have to be uniquely you.
That’s the kind of freedom I want to have. I want to be free from the fear that so often holds me back. I want freedom from shame and guilt and doubt and my own weaknesses. That freedom doesn’t just allow me to be autonomous, it allows me to be the Ashleigh that God created me to be.
Freedom Often Requires Sacrifice
Freedom isn’t free. Sometimes developing the kind of freedom we’ve been talking about requires a seeming sacrifice. We submit our bodies to a diet and exercise program so that we can actually use our bodies the way God designed them to be used. If you want to have financial freedom, you have to submit yourself to a budget and curb your spending habits. In order to be free from sin, you have to submit yourself to God’s word.
While these things might not seem freeing at the time, they allow us to be free in the long run, doing what it is that God has called us to with our bodies, our money and our lives. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices to accomplish the types of freedom that God calls us to.
May you and I search out that freedom, be willing to make the sacrifices, and trust God to work within our lives to build that freedom within us so that we can accomplish the works that God has uniquely designed us to do.