True Freedom

Recently it came to mind I had yet to check out the beach at Windsor after the area flooded, and this morning I went and surveyed the area with metal detector in hand.  Typically after a flood the upper layers of sand and everything they contained--usually bottle tops and other rubbish--are all washed away.  Today my experience was much the same as I found mostly metal lids from canned food with a lead fishing sinker here or there.  The most interesting thing I found was not made of metal at all, but was a bookmark that contained self-centred messaging that is rife in the world.

The phrase, "Be anything you want to be" suggests listening to Audiobooks (or reading eBooks) liberates us from the drudgery of being ourselves and provides an opportunity to live vicariously through the stories we hear.  I have read many books during my life, but I cannot say any of them made me to be anything besides what I already was.  What I can say based on a biblical worldview is the humanistic messaging that you are "the captain of your ship" or can "be anything you want" is not liberating at all:  this is the epitome of bondage to self.  It makes me a slave to my own desires and lusts; it is a prison that binds me to my failures, weakness, ill-discipline and sin as self-defining.  This promise of freedom and empowerment is empty as chaff in the wind, having no potential for life that satisfies, is fruitful or endures.

This humanistic appeal to the flesh is a vapid substitution for what is real, satisfying and obtained by God's grace:  in Christ we can be everything God designed us to be.  Rather than swallowing down self-empowering propaganda, we are divinely empowered to glorify God by lives lived in the fear of God and obedience to Him.  Apart from God we were at the mercy of our feelings, circumstances and our own strength, but having been born again we discover freedom to know and serve the God who was, is and is to come, the almighty Creator.  The God who created and loves us has provided all that pertains to life and godliness, and this is an abundant life no activity, possession, achievement or entertainment can rival.  The work Jesus has begun in us He will be faithful to complete.

Better than basing our identity on what we want, how much better it is to embrace the identity God desires for us as souls created in His own image, people He loves and calls to forgiveness, redemption and salvation.  Our wants change continually but God, His love and the abundant life He provides endures forever.  The greatest plans you could devise for yourself cannot compare with the wondrous, miraculous plans God has for you.  God's ways are not our ways, nor are His thoughts our thoughts, and He sheds light on them in the Bible.  Reading and considering God's word with a humble, hungry heart opens a way to freedom of self and joyous glory of God we never dreamed possible.  Everything God has planned for His people blows anything I want to be away.