On Faith
CAREY GREEN
Independence Day has always been a fond memory for me because it happens to fall on my birthday. I've had fun through the years joking that everybody in the country celebrates MY birthday! Throughout the summers of my early life, my dad enjoyed traveling so my birthday/Independence Day was often celebrated in the midst of family vacations. I remember fireworks in Montana, Texas, Colorado and many other places. Though I've seen Independence Day celebrated in a variety of places, the theme has always been the same -- freedom. True freedom is being
able to let goThe freedom theme of Independence Day has come to have special significance to me as I've grown older, and not because I've paid the price of freedom through serving our country as many have. My understanding of freedom has grown because of my spiritual experiences over the years. I've come to recognize that freedom is not what I originally thought it to be, the right to do whatever I want. When I operate according to that mind-set, I find the freedom I think I experience becomes one of the most oppressive forms of bondage, a tyrannical slavery to self I can't escape.
True freedom only comes as I willingly give up the right to rule myself so another can rule me rightly. In a nutshell, the biggest ball-and-chain I've ever known is me. What I really need is to be liberated from myself.
Honestly, selfishness has regularly caused problems in my life, not benefits. When I am at odds with my wife, it's because one or the other (or both) of us is being selfish. When I correct my children, is it because I am concerned about their development and the wrong they have done, or because they have irritated or inconvenienced me? And why do I find it so easy to have conflict with my neighbors or co-workers? Could it be that other people irritate me simply because they are not me? Do I honestly think my way is the way the world should be?
It hurts, but it's true. Many times I am miserable because I am a terrible ruler of my own life, but don't want to admit it, and that is a spiritual problem.
Jesus taught that the self-loving, self-regarding, self-seeking spirit of humanity is the direct opposite of real living and true freedom. His two basic rules for life were that love, instead of being turned in on itself, should go out first to God and then to other people. He taught it and He lived it. And the world has never been the same since!
So how can we declare our own Independence Day? First, I admit that I need to; I can't fix a problem that I refuse to admit. In religious circles we call this confession, but it's nothing mysterious. I simply admit to God that I have a problem and I recognize it is me. I tell Him I am enslaved to the selfishness and the sin that comes from it, and I want to be free.
Second, I must willingly give up my right to self-rule. I trust Jesus' life, death and resurrection to make a way for me to be free of self and full of Him. Finally, I believe it is important to begin learning more of Jesus' teaching (the Gospel of John in the Bible is a good place to start) and to rely on Him to help put it into practice in life. With God's help we can declare independence from slavery to self and that is when true freedom will begin.
The Rev. Carey Green is pastor of Pacific Islands Bible Church.
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