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Have you ever wondered, “What was I thinking?” Probably the craziest time in my life was my teen years. I had a wonderful Christian mother and was also surrounded by sincere believers in Christ. That, however did not stop me from doing stupid things, like shoplifting, vandalism and even breaking into a store to steal from others. By God’s grace, yes, HIS GRACE, I was eventually caught and punished. Several weeks of incarceration halted my life of crime, but it would not be until several years later that I would return to the wonderful life that Christ had planned for me.
To this day I do not understand how I could have hurt my mother so. How I could embarrass my family and shame myself after all the good things I had been taught and the examples I had seen?
This experience has taught me to be cautious of how I look at others. If God had not intervened for me through the justice system, through supportive family, friends and teachers, what direction my life might have taken? These are things for which I cannot take any credit.
However this cautiousness in itself does not satisfy my concerns for the situations we as a society, a community are in. If I look at a young person whose main activity in life is exploiting other young people by hooking them on addicting chemicals, or if I see the devastation that another young man causes through terrorism, yes, I can say, “there but by God’s grace go I.” Under the same circumstances of course, that could have been me. While this realization may help me, does it help anyone else?
People need compassion and empathy, but they also need the truth. They need direction, like the direction I received as a teen. I fear that in our day we like to take the easy way out. It can be very difficult to find the balance between compassion and lovingly telling the truth. We have to start somewhere. We cannot walk in everyone elses shoes, but we do all have some things in common. We have all sinned and have come short of the glory of God. We can all receive forgiveness and restoration through faith in the work that Jesus accomplished for us in His death and resurrection.
When I remember how obstinate and hard-headed I was as a teenager, I can understand how our youth might be motivated to do stupid things as well. At the same time, my hope is that they do not have to make the same mistakes. This may sound hard on my part, but if they do make these kinds of mistakes, I pray that God’s grace might provide for the helpful kind of discipline that I received back then!
Perhaps you could join with me in praying for the necessary wisdom to reach others with compassion and faith. These are so needed in our time.
What is true freedom?
In my lifetime I have known individuals who had fewer possessions than I have but had more freedom than I did. I have known people who had poorer health than mine, but more joy. At the same time I have been in difficult situations while being engulfed in perfect peace. Could it be that true freedom is the ability to live above one’s circumstances? Could it be that this kind of freedom could help a person actually change their circumstances?
What about the prisons of jealously, envy, hatred and lust? Is it possible to be enslaved by your own money, power, possessions and popularity?
Back in the sixties I thought that freedom meant freedom from responsibility. That is not what I am talking about now. I have at times taken upon myself too much responsibility. I do need to be free from that. And yet being responsible for my family is truly fulfilling. I would not want to released from serving my family and my community, as long as I understand that all things are not under my control.
Sometimes I would like to be free from this fight for personal freedom! What do I mean? well, it is tempting at times to give in to my weaker nature and drop out. Let everything around me fall apart, like it seems to want to anyway. I can dwindle away the hours on Youtube and try and forget about the important things. Then I become a prisoner of my own laziness.
The opposite happens when I push aside my passive tendencies and remember what our great and wonderful Savior Jesus did for us. His obsession was to set everyone free. A part of Him resisted the fight as well, but He overcame. His freedom was found in the Father’s will. He said that doing the will of His Father was like food that nourished Him.
Freedom from myself and my selfish desires is the ultimate goal to me. I will even go so far as to say that God wants you and I to know the freedom that Jesus enjoyed. His joy was in pleasing His Father but also in liberating others from spiritual and physical bondage! He did not travel around telling the sick and the poor to accept their circumstances. He preached to them about the Kingdom of God which is a realm of spiritual and physical freedom! He healed their minds, bodies and their souls. He said those who believed in Him could do these works and even greater.
If we fight to gain total freedom in Christ, this promise could be true for us as well!
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