Running Free

There is something elusive about freedom. No matter what state we are in, it seems that freedom is to be found elsewhere in a place or experience that we do not have. The child can't wait to become a teenager. The teenager can't wait to get a driver's license. When we're in high school, we can't wait to get to college. We can't wait to be free of our parents' rules and to try everything that they warned us against. We are free to choose our career paths, but then we hate our jobs and dream instead of other potential opportunities. We are free to pursue our own success, pleasure, and ambition without regard to the well-being of those around us. We are now free to live any life we choose. Yet the things we choose in our freedom soon hold us as their prisoners.

An overwhelming number of us feel trapped in the very lives that we have created. The irony is that we are the cruel tyrants who hold ourselves captive, and the tragedy of our imprisonment reaches into the deepest caverns of our souls. Our passion to be free both ignites us and betrays us, and, more often than not, leads us to be consumed by an unforgiving fire. The very fire that burns within us can destroy us.

Not all free acts lead to freedom. The choices we freely make often cost us lives of genuine freedom. This is why the Bible talks about the human experience in terms of being slaves to sin. Sin creates the illusion of freedom; it fools us into seeking freedom from God rather than finding freedom in God. Whatever else Jesus came to do, one thing is clear -- He came to set us free. God is not a warden; He is a deliverer. And so earnest is He about our freedom that He was willing to be taken captive and crucified on our behalf just so we can run free.

Freedom is the gift of serving others out of love. This is the freedom that only God can give, where once again we become like Him. It is here and only here that freedom exists without boundaries. We are free to love without limit, to forgive, to be merciful, to be generous, to be compassionate, to risk, to sacrifice, to enjoy, and to live ... And when we are free, we know it.

When we make God our primary passion, He transforms all the other passions of our hearts. The result of this transformation is that it will be God's pleasure to fulfill those passions. As Erwin McManus is so fond of saying, "When God is our desire, we can trust the passions of our hearts." In this state we can most fully live uniquely passionate lives. It is not incidental that the death of Jesus is called THE PASSION.