Live Free or Die

I think that might be a motto of one of the States in the U.S.A. or something like that. There aren’t a lot of places that the term naive fits, but this is one of them. People who make these kind of statements usually have little or no concept of what freedom entails. Nor do they understand how human nature works.

Freedom always entails restrictions. We can’t eat anything we want or any amount we want and remain free from poor health in later years. We can’t have sex with just any person and remain free from disease or death. We can’t drive at any speed we want in any part of town that we want and remain free from pain, injury and death or jail. To remain free of negative, we must to some degree curtail the things we’re free to do.

For example, if I want my marriage to last, I must say no to a temptation to engage in an affair. If I want to maintain my freedom to go where I please I must ignore any temptation to break a major law. Freedom isn’t found in a lack of all restrictions. Rather freedom comes from adapting to our lives the right restrictions.

Those who are naive about human freedom also fail or refuse to understand what motivates humans. For most people, the very things that we think will bring us freedom wind up becoming our jailor. Money, looks, power, education, mood altering chemicals, all these and more promise freedom but have the power to destroy relationships as we come to base our value and worth and security and sense of belonging on attaining and keeping these, what the Bible calls idols.

In fact these things are mere distractions. And people of the world almost always mistake those things that distract us from life for life itself.

Those who are naive about human freedom are also naive about reality. Just as we are not created to live under water, neither are we created to live outside of a relationship with our Creator. When we don’t honour our design, we cannot live to our full potential. Maturity is when we no longer have to do something just because we want to do it. Wisdom is knowing which of the things that we want to do will fit best with our design.

“If you hold to My teaching, you will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free.” Jesus.