In-dependent

On this July 4, I sit here in Germany thinking about my home country. On this day 235 years ago, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. We as a nation declared that we wanted to be independent from Britain, separate from their ruling authority. We wanted to be self-governed.

We idolize, cherish and celebrate independence. Being independent means getting to do what we want. As a nation, it was imperative that we govern ourselves.

As individuals, we also want the freedom to do whatever we want. What we don’t realize is that the very freedom we cherish is elusive because the things we crave and use our freedom to seek are the very things that enslave us. Drugs are a good example of that. If you give a person the freedom to use a drug, they use it and become addicted, unable to stop. The freedom to choose leaves a person enslaved. Sometimes rules are there to protect us from ourselves and our natures with their tendency toward enslavement.

Are there any freedoms in America that actually enslave us or will enslave us if laws are passed allowing us to do destructive things to ourselves and others? I can think of a few, but I won’t use this space to debate.

Are there any individual freedoms that enslave us? For instance, as a kid I had less freedom in what I would buy for food. Though I wanted candy all the time (along with carrots, apples, cereal and peanut butter), I didn’t have the independence to choose healthy things to eat. Thank you Mom for buying us good food! Now, I’m on my own and I have more independence. But sometimes I wish someone would take away my freedom of choice. Why do they have to put an entire shelf of chocolate bars there to tempt me? It’s so much easier when someone else is doing the shopping, or when the liberty is restricted in some way. Through my freedom I’m learning self-control as I buy healthy foods, despite the delectable chocolate aisle.

Over the last 2 years, I have become much more independent, not only with buying groceries but paying bills, figuring out bank stuff, teaching, and innumerable other things related to living in Germany. Yet the more independent I become, the more I realize that I will never be truly independent. Here, I’m still stuck with asking people for rides when I need to get somewhere (not having a car does have its limitations). Even if I were totally independent and living completely without the assistance of others, I’d still be depending on someone to stock the grocery shelves. Even if I lived on a farm and grew all my own food and slaughtered my own meat, I would still be dependent on rain and sun to make the plants grow. Even if I could manufacture rain and sun in a greenhouse to make my plants grow, I’m still not the one making them grow! God is. He ordains the mystery of photosynthesis to create food out of water. I can never be independent of God; rather, I’m in-dependent, in a dependent state: dependent on God and on others.

How do we get true freedom? If we have rules, we feel like we suffocate. If we don’t have rules, we enslave ourselves to our passions. As I was thinking about this today, there seemed to be one conclusion: True freedom is found in obedience to a just and loving Creator.

I realized this when I was trying to get the adorable little Leah to come when called.

Leah

I would love to let her off the leash, but she won’t come when called. It works in the house when I have a treat, but not outside in the great wide world with so many wonderful things to smell and lick. I am trying to train her to sit, stay, and come on command, but I still have to drag her to myself when I give the “come” command.

She longs for freedom; when she gets off the leash, she dashes around and around in joyful fits. Yet I cannot give her this freedom because she won’t obey me. If I could trust her to come when called, I would be able to call her away from dangers in the street, large ferocious dogs, people with guns, you get the idea. But if she won’t come on command, taking off the leash would result in spending a few hours chasing a little white cloud around, all to her amusement and my chagrin.

How many times are we in Leah’s situation? God has put some kind of restraint on us, much like a leash. We thrash at it and beg Him to remove it, yet all the while He is just saying, “You won’t come to Me when I call you. I’m going to keep you close and protect you from harm until you will obey Me. Then I can let you romp and play in freedom. For now, just come to Me.”