Human Freedom, Decision
Are we free?
It's a long-standing question. The existialists certainly thought so, calling such freedom terrifying. And I suppose I relate to that terror, believing as I do that choosing, deciding, and acting impact generations and eternities. Freedom in our context often brings to mind nationalism, and free speech rhetoric, the bottom line cry being, "I have the right to do whatever I please." Such is the modern definition of freedom.
And in the end, I suppose it's not far from the truth, if you accept the consequences that inevitably follow all choices.
But I want to think about freedom in the context of faith. Christ has set us free, the Bible says. Free from what? Is the bondage implied a bondage of oppression from humanity? Christ certainly did not run around the countryside freeing slaves from masters. Then what bondage?
In our language...sin. Genesis 3, whether you think it's with us at conception, or that we find it well enough all our own at the "age of accountablilty." Its that brokenness in our spirits and hearts--read "lives"--that results in an entrapment that Christians believe cannot be overcome by sheer force of will and understanding, but that must be supernaturally broken by the power of the Cross and the Resurrection. That's right--the power of the brokenness broken, repair set in place, salvation given freely, hope restored.
Okay, assume you buy that much. Now, here you are, having been "freed" by Christ. Now what? What is the extent of that freedom, and what does it mean?
I'm thinking about this because of a notion that's been rummaging around in my prayer life, and in recent conversations with friends, many of whom seem to be hungering more deeply to find the life of Christ, yet feel stymied by old patterns, old habits, old ways of thinking, still in a practical bondage to things from which they thought they'd been freed. Goes back to Dallas Willard's contention that we don't live in the power of Christ, many of our lives effectively the same as they might be if we weren't believers, because we don't do what Jesus did.
Here's the thought that keeps coming to mind: at no point, on either side of conversion, will God overwhelm the freedom of the human being. Sometimes I ask God to do things for me that I think are, to some degree, fruitless. Here's what I mean: "God, help me decide to do such and such." I imagine God saying, "Sure." And perhaps He grants understanding, some new insight, manages to miraculously steer some person into our lives (working mysteriously through that person's freedom...yes, yes, I know the objections here, but hang with me just for the sake of the point). So we can say He has answered the prayer.
But still...there we stand, waiting to decide. And we pray again, "Lord, help me to decide to do the same such and such I asked you about before."
And now what does He do? Grants wisdom, flashes lightning, knocks you on your butt. Who knows? But there's activity, God's hand all around.
And still, there you stand. Waiting to decide.
I am free to stand forever, never deciding. God will not throw me into the next stage of spiritual freedom whether I like it or not. The turn from evil, the decision for good, at all points of life's continuum, remain firmly where God placed them to begin with, in our hands.
My thought just now is that when we decide, and step, then power flows and now there are resources to do what we cannot on our own. This is the nature of faith, perhaps. To decide to do what we know we cannot, but that God can. But He won't make us do it, against our will. Even Jonah, running, chased down by God and thrown to the sea and the great fish, even then, he could have walked away.
Even Jesus. "I lay down my life willingly. No one takes it from me."
Don't you think He even means His Father?
Here's a quote from Willard that's pretty stunning:
"Our life and how we find the world now and in the future is, almost totally, a simple result of what we have become in the depths of our being--in our spirit, will, or heart. From there we see our world and interpret reality. From there we make our chioices, break forth into action, try to change our world. We live from our depths--most of which we do not understand.
'Do you mean,' some will say, 'that the individual and collective disasters that fill the human scene are not imposed upon us from without? That they do not just happen to us?'
Yes. That is what I mean. In today's world, famine, war, and epidemic are almost totally the outcome of human choices, which are expressions of the human spirit. Though various qualifications and explanations are appropriate, that is in general true.
Dallas Willard -- Renovation of the Heart, p. 13.
Perhaps this is why at the heart of all great stories lies the choosing of a character, the decisions a human being, or a character standing in as analogue to humanity, must make.
Is God wanting you to decide a thing, waiting with the power to move the obstacles aside? Then let's do it, let's decide in His favor, and step into Him...
Now...
10:19:30 AM 
