Freedom That Becomes Us

Freedom is always inviting, yet it’s risky and vulnerable, for it means change. I understand that as freedom was procured for slaves in the waning days of the Civil War, some slaves preferred the predictability, the security of the plantation. They had become slaves, and the prospect of becoming free--even if they were in fact, free--was overwhelming.
    I read something recently wherein someone conceded they were living in Hell, yet candidly admitted to a comfortable familiarity with it-- “At least I know the names of every street!”  I’m sure the streets in Freedom and Peace are nice, but I won’t be familiar. I’d have to acclimate, and I’m unsure I can pull that off . . . so I’ll just stay in Hell.
    Just today, my husband related his having heard that huge adult elephants can be tied via a rope to a stake in the ground, and they will remain even though they could walk off with the rope and stake quite easily. Why? Because when they were babes, the stake and rope had the power to hold them then. Now the enormous adult elephant still believes they can. Of course, this story isn’t so much about a fear of freedom, but rather the questioning if one actually has it: If you believe you are smaller than that which holds you, you really won’t be free.
    My faith in Jesus Christ appeals to me primarily because of the freedom He invites me to, the freedom He invites all of humanity to, and it’s the only freedom offered which is commensurate with our human dignity . . . and beyond. He invites us to live larger than that which we believe holds us.
    He invites us to a freedom from condemnation. Since he has absorbed the cost of our reconciliation, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8). Now if we are free from God’s condemnation, we are free from everyone’s condemnation: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” We are free from the condemnation of others, of ourselves.  Familial, educational, societal condemnations no longer hold because God has accepted us. And no voice carries more weight, though we may not always think it so.
    Now I realize there’s a whole self-esteem industry marketing means for us to feel good about ourselves.  Feel good about ourselves based on what?  That there are now a few overweight models so we really can feel good about ourselves because the media gods have finally affirmed size variety?  How about that my friends assure me I’m smart, talented, attractive--got some good things going for me? That my parents have affirmed me?  That “in comparison” to whatever or whomever, I’m better? But isn’t that all a relative? All a sliding scale?  I’d prefer a transcending self-assessment, based on something far less fickle than surrounding culture . . . and my moods. Indeed, if God says I’m loved and accepted just as I am, that He has no condemnation for me, then indeed I am genuinely free to love and accept myself, condemnation-free.
    Being free from condemnation of any kind means I am now free to become who I am: the Beloved. The journey of spiritual growth is becoming who you are--learning to live loved. And this really isn’t about living by some moral code--as handy as those can be. In Christ, we’ve received an identity shift: living lives of love is a result of internalizing an identity. As I become who I am, loving other becomes obviously consequential, rather than something achieved by obeying laws or religious dictates. “For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6). Soaking in that humbling amazing grace shifts the foundations of the heart: it’s no longer about obeying ethics while remaining internally unchanged; it’s living new: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation: The old is gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
    If there’s a discipline involved in it, it’s learning to regularly receive grace, receive God’s love until the old measurements, assessments, condemnations, achievements and failures purported to give  identity in this world fade into their apparent superficiality. As they diminish, the freedom to be me increases. And clearly, I’ve got a long way to go, yet indeed there is joy in this journey.
    Don’t become so familiar here, so comfortable and familiar in your present assessments that you decide to remain a slave, remain on the streets of whatever hell you’re in, or remain tethered to a stake so much smaller than you.
    Begin the freeing journey of becoming who you are: the beloved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSIVjjY8Ou8