Free to be Free

“You can’t tell me what to do, I am an adult now!” I boldly stated to my father. 

“I told you, I don’t want you going! It is not a good idea. My father retorted.

I felt anger build inside me and I listened to the oppressive demands of the tyrant I called, “Dad.”  I could imagine his tension building as well as I pictured his knuckles turning white from the increased clutching of the telephone.  I was 18 years and two months old and I was going to head out of town after closing down the gas station to watch a movie with my buddies.  I felt that I was being gracious to call my parents at all and tell them what I was doing.  However, the iron fist of fatherly rule was squelching my plans.  “Dad! I’m going and I have to go now! The last show starts at midnight and I am not going to make it if I wait!”

“Nothing good happens after midnight!”

“I don’t know about that…the movie is supposed to be really ‘good,’” I snidely remarked.

 “You are not going!”

“Yes, I am! You can’t stop me.”

“If you go, the locks on the doors will be changed when you get back.  If you want to be an adult…then you can go and be an adult.”

Ok…I guess he can stop me…I came home.

I thought that I was free, but in reality, I was still submissive to the rules instated by my parents.  Yet, I no longer live under their rule.  Now as a 46 year old I don’t even bother to ask…or even tell my parents if I am going to a movie.  I do occasionally ask them to fill my gas tank, or pay for my supper.  They are still my parents after all…I figure they owe me?

Freedom is a difficult concept.  As Americans we are free…we live in a free country, yet we are inundated with rules.  Thus, we linger in confusion with what freedom is.  At one point in Jesus’ ministry he says, “If the Son sets you free, then you are free indeed.” Paul writes at great length about freedom in the letter to the Galatians.  Galatians 5:1 states, that it is for “freedom that we have been set free,” and Galatians 2:1-10 reveals an astounding truth…we are FREE.  We are 100% set free! We are set free by the grace of Jesus Christ! Maybe it’s time that we really understand what this freedom is and the amazing grace that it reflects.