I woke up this morning thinking about freedom. I’m not sure exactly what triggered it, but it isn’t a new topic of thought for me. Lately, I’ve been wondering and asking myself a lot, what does it mean to be truly free?
What is freedom anyway??
I know this for sure: A lot of people believe they live in freedom, when in reality, they’re in a straight-jacket. How do I know? Because it happens to everyone…including me.
For years, banks have been loaning people piles and piles of money, and then those people feel the freedom to go buy the stuff they want. Yet most just end up trapped by debt, and now struggle to pay their bills. What happened to the feeling of freedom? Was it real or just an illusion?
What about lust? Every day we look at things we wish we could have, and many times end up dwelling on how we can get it. But why? And what does it mean? The author of a great little book called Sex God wrote, “If I want something to the point that I can’t conceive of being content without it, then it owns me.” We all lust of things we wish could have, but we are not free.
Lust is slavery.
And what about our careers? We want the right jobs so we can make the right money and be free to live out the American Dream. Is that wrong? Is it true freedom? It’s a valid question and likely depends on our motives.
Tim Keller, in his book, The Reason for God, wrote, “In our society many people have worked extremely hard to pursue careers that pay well rather than meet their talents and interests. Such careers are straight jackets that in the long run stifle and dehumanize us.”
I have friends who have currently decided not to live out the lives God created them to live, all because they want the “freedom” to live the “way they want to live.” But are they really free? Or, are they merely trapped in a lie, and have succumbed to the pressure to perform for the rest of the world? They aren’t living for freedom. They’re living for acceptance by the world around them.
That’s just counterfeit freedom.
There was a season of my life where I thought I had freedom, mainly because I was deceived into thinking that I was finally free to do whatever I wanted. I grew up in a small town with no money. Then I started traveling the world doing magic shows, and started making friends and making money. I got to live where I wanted to, in the sized house I wanted to live in. I got to drive the cars I wanted, eat where and what I wanted, have whatever sized TV I wanted, and on and on and on. But was I really free? Not at all. I was trapped, and the result was a vicious circle of meaninglessness.
I was living in a straight-jacket, and my freedom was just an illusion.
Let’s be honest…I wasn’t living for myself. That may have been the desire and intent, but really? Was I really living a certain way because I wanted what was best for me? Or do we live the way we live because we fall into the pressure to perform?
To be seen driving that car. Wearing those clothes. To be seen with that girl. For people to know we live in that house.
We’re just putting on a show, but really, we’re stuck in straight-jackets. Because the freedom we’re chasing is not only an illusion, it traps us, and we become slaves to our desires.
So let’s go back to our original question: What is freedom?
What does it mean to be truly free? What is the truth? And is there truth that can set us free?
What is freedom? And if it exists, how do we get it?
Tags: bj harris, Christian Illusionist, deception, freedom, Harris, Illusion, reason for god, rob bell, sex god, tim keller
“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.” Galatians 5:1
To me, freedom is being able to do whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want. Obviously, then, no one in this world is free. Why is that? I think it is because of sin. Sin wants what it can’t (or shouldn’t) have. So I either “lust” for something I can never really get, or I get something I shouldn’t have and then I face the consequences.
It seems to me, the only way to be free is to be changed from the inside out. In his book “Xenocide,” Orsen Scott Card wrote, “the only way to get a human to stop doing something is to get the human to stop wanting to do it.” Desire seems to be the root of all slavery.
The apostle Paul wrote, “Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” This is the way to freedom. The Galatians were in bondage because they thought the law would lead to freedom. It only led them back into slavery. But, if we walk in the Spirit, God changes us and makes us desire only good things.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, etc… Against such there is no law!” If there is no law against these things, and these are the only things I want to do (this is the qualifier), then I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. That means I am free.
I love this quote from CS Lewis:
“The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike. Subjectivism about values is eternally incompatible with democracy. We and our rulers are of one kind only so long as we are subject to one law. But if there is no Law of Nature, the ethos of any society is the creation of its rulers, educators and conditioners; and every creator stands above and outside his own creation.”
—C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections
I just love CS Lewis…anywho…
If we are not careful our search for “freedom” becomes something that we are slave to. Wordly freedom I don’t believe exists. A simple speeding ticket proves that. Our prison’s are full of people that thought they were “free” to do whatever they wanted. They were searching for worldly freedom. Something that was selfish and personal.
Freedom comes at a cost. Ultimately Christ died so that we could be freed from the curse of sin. So that means we are free eternally. Freedom on earth can not exist when sin is still here. There will be a day when we can worship in spirit and truth freely. Once again though that is heavenly.
Great thoughts and comments guys! Keep them coming!
Just a comment also on the “Is Christianity a straight jacket?” post on Facebook.
Actually what is a straight jacket is religion, self and sin. Those things bind us and hold us down from what God actually intended as a relationship full of freedom. We clothed ourselves with a jacket at Eden and tried our best to loosen the buckles with everything except a true relationship with God. Once Christ came he waits (he stands at the door) for us to ask him to break us free of the bondage. Once we accept his help (salvation) not only does he loosen and unbuckle but he also destroys the jacket.
[...] night he clued me in to Harris III, an illusionist who has a completely different take on “Illusions of Freedom.” It’s not the same philosophical question we’ve been talking about here, but [...]
A wonderful and enduring question, Harris! At the risk of being overly bookish, here’s a take on the matter from the social sciences …
In the 80s, Thomas Sowell, a libertarian economist, wrote a book called “A Conflict of Visions.” In it, he set about to divide political thought into that concerned with means and that concerned with ends.
Among other things, Sowell speaks of the means-based approach as consisting of the beliefs that:
- Freedom is being free from coercion and external control.
- Freedom involves having social processes that do not legally limit one’s actions.
- Entitlement contradicts free choice.
- Individualism means having free choice among opportunities, rewards and penalties.
- Rights serve to protect the domains within which people are free to make choices.
By contrast, he describes the ends-based perspective on these matters as being that:
- Freedom is being free to accomplish specific aims.
- Freedom consists of the ability to achieve one’s goals.
- Entitlement and free choice are twin applications of similar democratic principles.
- Individualism means having the right to provide input into the decision making of the powerful.
- Rights allow the government to expand and create those social results to which people are morally entitled.
Each of our own individual visions of how the world operates, says Sowell, exist somewhere between these two poles. Problems happen, he says, when someone with an ideology close to one extreme engages someone else who’s close to the other. This conflict of visions is compounded, says Sowell, by the very language each person uses to describe their reality. When we find ourselves in such situations, we tend to speak past the other, misinterpreting the meaning and rationale of their position. And they’re likely to do the same in engaging us.
Wow, Doug! Thanks for sharing! That’s good stuff!!