God is good!
He is sovereign and kind.
And, He is very, very present.
Believing and receiving caused me to pay attention to His presence in the moments of my life. The words He spoke over me during the next three years encouraged me to allow His presence to transform.
Goodness, I wish transformation was easy.
In 2018, I claimed the word "freedom" for my year. Y'all, I was excited! I went straight to Galatians 5:1, For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and don't submit again to a yoke of slavery, and decided I was all in for this freedom if Christ died to give it. What could be better?
First things first, I searched for a book to read. (If you don't know this about me already, you should know that reading to learn has become one of my favorite hobbies. I don't even care if that makes me a nerdy type.) I found You Are Free by Rebekah Lyons and read things like,
You weren't made to keep up. You were made to be free. To be who you already are.
Calling is where our talents and burdens collide.
You cannot see the unknown until you release the known.
When we become enslaved to anything, we miss out on a life of surrender and peace.
We cannot prioritize our doing before being, our assignment before healing, our service before freedom.
All of this sounded exciting and freeing, and (if I'm honest) scary. I'd never really thought that I wasn't free. I became a Christian when I was 7. My personal testimony doesn't include a life enslaved to sin prior to meeting Jesus. I mean, there's not a lot of trouble one can get into during the first 6 years of life. In every spiritual way possible, I felt I was completely free. Still, though, I felt I was missing out on the fullness of the freedom Paul described to the Galatians.
I can't say I recorded tons of liberating moments that year, but God and I began a journey in 2018 that has been ongoing since then. Together, we've addressed a number of invisible chains that kept me bound to good things at the expense of better things.
As it turns out, freedom's journey has to wind in and out of dark, lonely, and difficult places. It seems I wouldn't willingly give up good for better until the good way became unbearable. In the years to follow, I would gain firsthand experience in the way of the Israelites. I used to have so much difficulty understanding why they would ever want to go back to Egypt where they were slaves.
Well, I figured it out! In the uncertainty and wide open space of new freedom, former slaves are afraid! I came face to face with that fear but didn't realize that's what it was. Therefore, suppressed fear escalated to anxiety in a hurry, and I just didn't know what to do with freedom. So,
I hid, (sorry, now friends! I didn't know I needed you.)
I grasped for control in areas I had no control. (sorry, kids! Invoice me for your therapy.)
I denied that I needed help navigating the newness of freedom's life.
I won't spoil upcoming words and messages. Of course, God had a plan all along. But, I want to speak the truth that freedom is what we were made for. It is for freedom that Jesus set us free. That doesn't mean it won't cost us something. I think that's why Paul included the second portion of the verse, "stand firm and don't submit again to the yoke of slavery."
Jesus paid the ultimate price to set me free! And, I will have to fight to keep it. The world, busy-ness of life, even religion will try to steal my freedom and keep me striving. No, thank you! I'll keep fighting freedom's fight.
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