Freedom

What does Freedom look like to you? Does it look like a flag flying and a parade of soldiers marching down the street? Or is it men and women able to vote like they like even when it seems that they are doing the wrong thing and we are headed for ruin in a system that often watches and does nothing? There are many ways to define freedom and even more ways to stop it from reaching it’s full potential.

Tonight I am focusing on what freedom is when you think of religion or better yet, ministry as you move into what you have been called into. Some people would say that freedom is the ability to do what you want. That will work in most situations, but to expand on that definition, you have to be willing to think out of the box a little bit. It’s true that freedom is the ability to go after anything you want, but I believe it is more. I believe that freedom is much more than that. I believe that the big fraud is made when you water freedom down to “doing what you want”.

No, the true test of freedom is the ability to do what you want, but the sense to not do it. For example in the School of Ministry, we don’t have many rules. No it is about how you choose to act with out rules that are important. So in the school, we give a freedom to fail as well as a freedom to succeed. Not that is true freedom! So in my view, true freedom exist when you are free to act totally in violation of your own best interest.

Many men and women have died over the years protecting our right for true freedom. On Monday, we will honor them. Memorial Day is just that, a time to honor the dead. It’s not a celebration of life, but of honoring the dead. In that regard it should be a sober event. I know it is a three day holiday. Shoot, I am taking advantage of it too. I just wish that more people would worry about the real meaning of the office side. Today as we pause to celebrate our freedom, please remember to understand that your ability to fail without punishment. John Maxwell talk’s about “falling forward.” That approach without the punishment of failure would be true freedom. We have it. If you don’t have it, go to a place that it exists. You chant tend to walk into margin years.