“FREEDOM!!!”… bellows the soulful cry of Sir William Wallace in the epic story “Braveheart” as he accepts certain death in preference to bending a knee to tyranny. It is primal to the human experience, this innate passion to be free, to control one’s own destiny as the master of one’s fate. This sacred desire is embedded in the core of our being and is rightly affirmed if we are to be other than an indistinct extension of our Father in heaven. To be fully human, freedom of choice must stand inviolate… but not without bounds.
As has been said of fire, freedom is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. When prematurely granted in measure beyond that of the requisite wisdom to use it properly, it produces only chaos and destruction. Metered appropriately though, it becomes an essential stimulant not only for human development but for the growth of all living things. No one would argue that a firm grip on a young child’s hand is necessary to avoid disaster when crossing a busy highway. By the same token, a young seedling’s movement must be limited by the stake until the wind tested strength of its inner fiber grows to render such external restraint unnecessary.
Clearly we must all be allowed a certain amount of slack in the tie that binds us to our Father in Heaven, but never should we imagine that this protective leash would be irresponsibly loosened beyond what is helpful to our progress. And who among us can honestly say even after a long lifetime on earth that we are truly ready for the rope to be severed completely?
The need for age appropriate freedom in our physical and emotional maturity may be self evident to most but when it comes to our spiritual development, the widely accepted conventional Christian wisdom of our day would have us awash in unlimited freedom right out of the chute. We are somehow deemed capable from birth or certainly by the ‘age of accountability’ – age nine-ish, or so – of making right choices regarding all things spiritual, up to and including where we will spend the rest of eternity!
Worse yet we are taught that all we have to do to get God to leave us alone completely is to just repeatedly ignore His voice when He comes looking for us. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock…”, we are reminded in sermon after sermon as the preacher rightly extols the virtue of Christ’s gentle approach in wooing us. So far so good, but then comes the pitifully inadequate conclusion which renders God’s will for us completely ineffectual. As I was told in one Sunday service years ago, “Out of respect for our individuality and for our sacred freedom of choice Jesus will not barge into our life uninvited. His polite display of good manners in the courting of our souls is akin to that of a ‘perfect gentleman’. And if rejected one time too many, He will walk away sadly and never bother us again. For him to insist on a relationship, the preacher howled, would really amount to nothing short of spiritual rape!”
How strange it is that in numerous other sermons given by the same preacher it had been rigorously explained that the man on the other side of that door to which Jesus is rapping his knuckles is blind, or at least “sees through a glass darkly”. He is “ever hearing” but not understanding… has been consigned by God Himself to disobedience… and really for all practical purposes is dead (in sin). In other words he is truly incapable of responding. Yet the “Savior” timidly waits for the dead man to respond, as though He were totally unaware of the condition of the poor wretch.
For argument’s sake, however, let’s assume for the moment that the man in question (really a child in God’s eyes) is completely capable of answering the knock, perhaps marginally incapacitated by his sinful nature but in no way prevented from rising to the occasion. His refusal to do so should then rightly be viewed simply as an act of rebellion. But even in this context, with the eternal stakes being so high, is it right that the Savior would allow such behavior to continue to its logical conclusion through His own refusal to intervene? Could we imagine even an earthly father waiting for a child’s permission to apply corrective action in such a case? Or would he not be expected to proceed straight away to “violate” the kid’s freedom of choice, knocking down the door if need be and using to righteous advantage his parental authority in rescuing the clueless child from his youthful ignorance of what is good for him?
It would be unimaginable for us as parents to give our consent, whether passively or actively, to our children’s acts of self destruction no matter how much they begged for the freedom to do so. And yet, constrained as we are by our mortal limitations, we may indeed be forced to let go of them entirely when they come of age and choose to leave home against our better judgment. However, this is a parental impediment that does not exist for our Heavenly Father. Not only is He never forced to release control, but unlike an earthly father whose influence on the child is at best a mixed bag of blessing and curse, God is the perfect Father whose imminent presence is not only completely beneficial to us but absolutely essential to our well being and spiritual development.
Knowing therefore that an intimate relationship with Him is the only “thing” that will truly bring satisfaction to our souls, how is it to be imagined that Perfect Love’s response to our continual ‘turning away’ could ever come to be one of resignation, saying in effect… “Oh well, I guess you must just want to be miserable after all”. Why would He who has the ability to win even the most obstinate soul back to perfect union, set an arbitrary time limit (life on earth) that would ensure His eternal separation from most of His kids? Why would He do so when allowing just a few more moments (on the time scale of eternity) for the complete unfolding of His impeccable parental strategies would result in none being lost to the guiles of Satan? And what wayward children wouldn’t be glad in retrospect to have had the premature granting of their independence averted by a loving father intent only on ensuring the realization of all the desires of their heart?
Thankfully the Bible is sufficiently clear on the Gospel message to leave no doubt that God has no intention of standing by idly while His children (any of them) ignorantly choose a lesser path for all eternity. How shamefully twisted is the widely held view of our God that while He insists that we approach Him as a child, totally trusting in His ability to care for our needs, in reality He will abandon that trust in a heartbeat when the time of His longsuffering comes to an end. How wonderful it is to understand this to be nothing more than a gross misrepresentation of His true nature. We can in confidence come to Him as a child, cashing in on His promise of rest for our weary souls. He is the Love from which nothing can separate us, and that which He wills for us will be accomplished, for there is none able to oppose that will.
And unlike our neurotic earthly parents, our Father in heaven will never give in to the bratty ranting of His children. He will neither grant that which is being demanded nor by knee jerk reaction lash out in anger with that which the child “deserves”, but rather will always patiently provide exactly what the child truly needs. The story of Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker” portrays a wonderful example of the inner beauty awaiting release in us all if only someone would dare give us what we need in spite of what we ask for.
Obviously our Father in Heaven carefully monitors our activities, and must at times directly overrule our “sacred” freedom of choice. To think otherwise is to recklessly impugn His parental skills to a level below that of the proverbial deadbeat dad. And how arrogant it is to reckon our own will as possessing not only equal authority to that of the Almighty, but greater! For it has become a staunchly defended pillar of the faith to profess that, where our will to destroy ourselves stands in conflict with His will to restore, it is our will absolutely which must preside, even to the point of eternal separation and damnation. As Jesus rhetorically recanted such thinking, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?” (Matthew 7:9-11 NIV)
Away with such aberrations of an impotent idol made in our image, so pitifully incapable of raising His children up to freely love him in return. Where our earthly parents have let us down, He will not. “Though your mother may forget you, I will not” (Isaiah 49:15 NIV) “If you make your bed in Hell, behold I am there.” (Psalms 139:8 KJV). He started the ball rolling without seeking our consent… “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” (Job 38:4 NIV)… and He will finish the task in like manner, although progressively gaining our total consent in the process. His parenting skills are above reproach and, of all the children He has sired, He will lose none. All will freely choose to take their appointed place in the Holy (whole-y… whole-some) family, eternally grateful that their sacred freedom of choice had been absolute–ly limited.