Freedom – Straight From the Heart

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1).

Meet my brother, Leonard, the youngest of six siblings; a rebel to the ninth degree. At home, at school; anywhere he decided to kick and scream against society. In his twisted thinking, rules were made to be broken. He didn’t know the meaning of respect and felt entitled to do and to take whatever he pleased. He never worked for it; he just took it. What he didn’t steal, he destroyed, like the abandoned house he set on fire when he was just barely twelve.

After spending a year in reform school, we thought he had learned his lesson. It only made him worse. He blamed everyone but himself for what he considered cruel and unusual punishment. With a heart burning with rage, he continued his bitter war against authority, serving time in jail, getting out on parole then back in jail for breaking parole and committing even more devious crimes.

Addicted to the thrill of the chase, and hallucinations of drugs and alcohol, my brother became a prisoner of pride and self-destruction. More than five decades of living a life of crime, death was his final destination, where his penniless, decaying body lay in a shameful, pauper’s grave.

But, as a Christian, was I any better? Was I freer than he? Less angry? Less rebellious? Less responsible for my twisted thinking and kicking and screaming against injustice?

For decades, I thought I was safe, hiding behind the walls of my religious facade. It was too risky opening the door to my soul. What would people think when they saw the blazing fire of anger and rage? And, what about the green-eyed monster of jealousy and the double-edged sword of vengeance? What would they think about the barbed wire fence around my heart, and the snarling, junkyard dog chained to it?

We can parade through life fooling people, but we can never parade through life fooling God.

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5: 19, 20, 21).

Like an earthquake, I was shaken to the core of my being after reading these blatant, condemning words: those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. And the Holy Spirit whispered to my soul, not even you, Sandi.

It’s as if a dam broke inside me and all the sludge and filth I’d been holding back for decades, began pouring out. The Holy Spirit removed my blindfolds, revealing every sin labeled and dangling before my eyes like puppets on a string. What I so carefully kept hidden in the dark was exposed before God like creepy, ugly bugs scattering in the light.

Falling on my knees before God, he washed my heart clean and set it free. He tore down the walls that Satan helped me build and showered me with his love and forgiveness. He renewed my mind, restored my soul, and sent the Holy Spirit to teach me how to live. He pulled me out of the quicksand of sin, released Satan’s death-grip from my heart, and gave me peace and joy and everlasting life in him.

Freedom in Christ is not a free ticket to a trouble-free life, nor is it a one-time deal, but an ongoing process of moving farther away from what we were, and closer to what we are becoming in Christ. It doesn’t mean we will never fail and disappoint God, because we will. We’re humans, bent towards the alluring pleasures of the devil’s playground of sin and destruction.

And, because God created us with a free choice, he allows us the freedom to run away, and to get all tangled up in Satan’s web of lies and deceit again. The choice is ours, and so are the dire consequences we will face. Continue living for Satan and die in the tar pit of sin, completely separated from God, or live in the everlasting power and freedom in Christ. The choice is all yours.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want “Galatians 5: 16, 17”.

So, I’m paralyzed. Been this way since the car accident. I can’t walk. I can’t feed myself, bathe myself, even brush my own teeth. And this Man comes to me and asks, “Do you want to get well?”

And with a big, pearly white-toothed smile I say, “No. I’m good. I like people waiting on me hand and foot. I like using my handicap as a crutch. I like not having to do anything, prove anything, take responsibility for anything. I like people coddling me, making excuses for me, doing everything under the sun for me.

Of course, this ridiculous scenario is just fiction. I’m physically healthy. I can clean my own house, pull weeds from my flowerbeds, even walk around the block a few times.

But the man Jesus approached at the healing pool had been an invalid for thirty-eight years, and Jesus asked him, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6)

Why would Jesus ask such a question? Why would He even think that the man wouldn’t want to be healed? He was at the healing pool, wasn’t he?

As a snotty-nosed kid, and seeing the world through my over-sized rose-tinted glasses, I often wondered about that scripture. Then, when I grew up and those glasses got punched off my face, I saw the world and the people in it differently. I even saw myself differently.

Reality stinks. It rattles our brain and makes us see things about ourselves and others that we’d rather not. Don’t open my eyes, and I won’t have to see how many people use their long-time physical and emotional handicaps to bully and control others. Stick in a pair of earplugs and I won’t have to hear their never-ending moans and groans.

It’s funny how conversations often become a contest of who had the most surgeries or take the most pills or has the worst ailments or suffers the most pain.

Why do people do that?

As kids growing up, my brother and I had rheumatic fever, but Kenny’s was more severe than mine. He was sickly all the time, in and out of the hospital and pumped full of penicillin at the least sign of a cold. He cried a lot. Was coddled and babied a lot. And I felt ignored a lot.

Then, when I was in the third grade, I got deathly sick every day after lunch and laid my head on my desk trying not to throw up all over the floor. Finally, mom and daddy took me to the doctor to discover I had walking pneumonia.

Finally! I was one up on my brother and rubbed it in his face, boasting that I was the sickest, now, and it’s my turn to get all the attention!

But, Kenny wasn’t having it and argued that he was still the sickest. After dragging mom into it, she finally ended the contest by calling it a tie. We were both equally sick.

For many years I expected people to treat me with kid gloves because of my out-of-whack emotional disorders. I relied on others to do things for me that I was afraid of doing myself. I relied on my loved ones to protect and defend me, to be there for me, to boost my confidence, to validate and make excuses for me. And the more I relied on others, the more dependent I became.

Then, hearing my desperate cries at the healing pool one day, Jesus knelt beside me and whispered, “Do you want to get well?”

When the prison doors swung open, I just stood there gazing wide-eyed into the vastness of freedom. It was scary out there without my crutches —- those emotional handicaps I so desperately clung to for so long. The smell of freedom was alluring and sweet, but stepping into it was like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.

I still rely on the love and support of my family, but I don’t expect them to sit and hold my hand twenty-four hours a day, not that I ever did. I don’t expect them to make up for everything I lost throughout my life. I don’t expect them to coddle and pamper me and agree with every single thing I do or say.

Just as God has set me free, I set others free. I know what it’s like to be bullied by someone else’s handicaps, and I’d rather cry alone in the coldest, darkest cave than to ever do that to the ones I love.

Freedom always comes at a cost, especially if you’ve been enslaved for a long, long time. In order to gain one thing you have to let go of another and another and another, whatever tattered rag you’re clinging to because it feels reliable and safe.

And as crazy as it seems, many people would rather lie around sucking on their emotional pacifiers than get off their pity pot and walk.

I don’t want to be one of those people. I want to get well. I want to be what I was created to be. I want to take up my mat and walk like a boss!

When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?” John 5:6