The boys jumped into bed with Heath and me this morning, at 7:06, fully dressed in their fourth of July garb. Teaching moment... "Tell me about the Fourth of July. What is it about?" Will answers, "to thank those who fight the bad guys?" "Sort of, but it's the birthday of our country. On July 4, 1776, we became a country. We fought a war, won and became a country."
"What if we hadn't winned?" (We're working on our verb tenses.)
Aaahhh, the age old question. What if they hadn't left England? What if we hadn't fought the war? What if we hadn't won? Freedom interrupts life. Life is changed.
Our lives are built on the "what ifs". What if I hadn't met that boy? What if I'd picked another college? What if I'd gotten that job? Bondage interrupts life. Life is changed.
We live there, don't we? Second guessing. Wishing we had made other choices or that life looked differently. Hoping that our ship will come in and all things will become new. At the very least, that is not what the earliest Americans fought for. They didn't give up everything so we could sit in our own self-loathing. And what about Jesus?
"It is for freedom that Christ set us free." (Galatians 5:1)
Period. That's it. He set us free for... Freedom. Not to do works or save people or change the world. For freedom. And we leave ourselves in captivity, bound by the "shoulda, coulda, woulda's".
This Independence Day, let's allow ourselves to be interrupted by freedom. To "throw off all that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and run the race marked out for us..." (Hebrews 12:1). Let's allow this day of freedom to look differently and set a precedence for days to come, living "where the Spirit of the Lord is [because] there is freedom." (2 Corinthians 3:17)
- jill
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