Celebrating Freedom

It’s July in the USA, and there are signs everywhere proclaiming and celebrating freedom. This year I pondered freedom, its meanings and applications. I decided the quip “I don’t think it means what you think it means” fits into a discussion. Primarily because of the many ways people use and interpreted it. One that I am struggling through right now is retirement freedom.

Politics and economics forced me into early retirement. It wasn’t what I wanted, but it turned out to be what our family needed. My wife’s parents moved from Florida back to Illinois to be near us in their waning years. The news excited us as it was an answer to our prayers, though their move was much later than we wanted and too late for our family dynamics. Both parents needed more help than we imagined. Since I was retired, I was the one with the freedom to help them. They called every day with things they wanted done immediately and sometimes two or three times per day.

Retirement freedom

That schedule became more complicated when our oldest son got out of the military and asked to move in with us so he could finish school. He came with his wife, three daughters under the age of five, and his father-in-law. Six more people with needs added to our calendar, or more accurately, to my to-do list. Over time, much of my time included taking the girls to and from school.

The first years of retirement offered freedom from the daily time clock and fulfilling demands placed on my position outside of the family. However, I went from one boss to several bosses until physical condition, time, and graduations took those bosses out of our lives or home. Many times, I lamented in those years that I got more done around the house when I had a forty-hour work week. Retirement wasn’t freedom.

Financial freedom

Since then, my wife and I sold our house in Illinois and moved to Oklahoma. Here we are experiencing lower cost of living, which contributes to some financial freedom. We had not fully considered how costly and how time-consuming resettling can be. Our calendar filled with making several trips daily to stores to get things we got rid of before moving. Gradually the store shopping decreased, replaced with online shopping for things we could not find locally. We had to find new doctors so we could get new prescriptions ordered and filled here in Oklahoma. And if that wasn’t enough, my book launched with little fanfare our second or third month here. Any gaps we had, we filled with writing, editing, marketing, and trying to become a part of the community. We needed to establish new friends. All these things soaked up our freedom.

Well, come to think of it, not all the freedom was soaked up. We still had five trips to plan: four back to Illinois and one to Europe. The freedom we have to travel and to meet people is awesome. We love it. However, the times between trips robs our freedom as we check and double-check that our responsibilities here are covered while we are away. It’s while we are on our trips that we get a break and can enjoy our freedom. The planning and preparation connected with each trip sure makes it feel like we don’t have freedom.

Anything goes

If freedom means that we can do whatever we want to do—whatever is right in our own eyes to do—whenever we want to do it, then no, we are not free. That definition is tempting. We want at least some part of it to be true. Why should anyone else or those in government have any say in what I do with my life? It’s my life. I get to choose. Isn’t it a common slogan, “you can be whatever you want to be”?

Test the theory out. For freedom’s sake, drive on the wrong side of the road to see how far you get. Years ago, a man who had his driver’s license taken away more than once for drunken driving, chose to test it out. That night he drove again without a license, drunk, speeding, ran a red light, and killed five teenagers going to their prom. He survived. Our choices are not free of everything—especially consequences. This tragic account illustrates the flawed reasoning some have of the word freedom. The man felt he was exercising his freedom, and it was nobody’s business. He proved to be wrong. If wrong in his situation, it must be a wrong understanding in life and in interpreting our nation’s laws.

Political/Social vs Inner

So, what is freedom? And what are we celebrating? Two hundred thirty-seven years ago, a group of men had the heart, passion, and foresight to establish a government that would be answerable to the people it governed, that would exist to preserve individual freedoms—some specifically itemized, and that has survived some of the fiercest attacks to break it down. That is the political/social form of freedom. There is a greater freedom that lives in the heart of every person who finds it.

 “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,’” (John 8:31-32, ESV). He adds, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed,” (John 8:36. ESV). Between those verses, Jesus makes it clear he is speaking about a freedom that is spiritual, not physical. He explains how a man becomes enslaved by and to the sin he commits. Paul later wrote to the Galatian church, “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another,” (Galatians 5:13, ESV). I like how the Good News Version words the phrase about an opportunity for the flesh. It says, “But do not let this freedom become an excuse for letting your physical desires control you.” Consider that phrase: letting your physical desires control you. In other words, don’t sacrifice your spiritual freedom and become enslaved or in bondage to that sin.

True freedom

Laws provide a framework for people to live in peace with one another. It is common to weigh our lives in the scales of good versus bad according to those laws. But true freedom is experienced only through a deeper work in our hearts by the one defines freedom by grace.