I wanna be a free spirit when I grow up. I wanna grow freedom. But how does True Freedom grow?
It turns out, it takes work to grow freedom, hard work. Who knew?? I thought free spirits just didn’t care what others thought… those go with the flow cool creative types. Growing True Freedom didn’t go quite like that. When I asked for a truly free spirit, what grew was a choice. As I stood in a briar patch I could no longer ignore, I was forced to choose: stay stuck in the stickers, or pull on some leather gloves and work my way through it.
Prick. Ouch. Poke. Ugh. Stab. Ooow.
In this season, I began to handle some things I had been stepping over for years. And as painful as that season was— God allowed it. He allowed me to get pricked and scratched. He couldn’t do this work for me, but he was with me.
Can I be real? Freedom ain’t cheap. And it don’t come easy. Don’t let the peace & love hippy vibes fool you. But if I thought my metaphorical blood-sweat-and-tears season was hard—it was nothing compared to the real work that was already done. There were real thorns, and there was real blood. Jesus already paid for my Freedom. So if I wanna be free, I can be. He made a way. But I still gotta do what it takes to get to it.
I am free to walk in a Garden of God’s Love. I am free to know him and be near him in all areas of my life, not just in a holy sanctuary on a Sunday; I can be with the Father on my walks in the neighborhood and in my art studio and in my car and in the shower and in my dreams. But before the real thorns and blood, this homegrown relationship I have with an Almighty God wouldn’t have been possible. There were Holy boundaries, defined restrictions, and rules on rules on rules…until Jesus simplified things. He tidied up all the complexities, and he broke through a veil that blocked my path to the Garden-like God. He did it all for me to know this free flowing Love. But if we aren’t paying attention, we could accidentally live outside of that expensive freedom. We might even live an entire lifetime stuck in the stickers— all while the power tools we need to free our feet just sit in the garden shed. We have the tools we need to walk freely, but are we choosing to use them?
Today there is a briar patch tripping up a whole generation of people; a mental health crisis is growing wild in this country. If it isn’t affecting you, it probably has a grip on someone you love. Minds are tangled in thorny weeds of past pain and threatened by the idea of future thorns. A mind that is shackled to the past is stuck, and that’s not the life Jesus died to give us. When we find ourselves thinking about what happened, or what could have happened, or what should’ve happened, we are not living in the present day. The gift of this day is stolen. And when our minds are swarmed with worry and fear of what the future might bring, we are filled with crippling anxiety, and again, we are not living in the present day, but in some imagined future situation. The mind can easily get tangled in these thorny patterns. So how do we get our minds unstuck? How do we break free and keep advancing towards God’s good and beautiful dreams for our lives? The dream Jesus died to redeem.
I wish someone had told me long ago that being a grown up doesn’t mean you suddenly possess the power to know-it-all or to predict the future (if they did, I wasn’t listening). I wish someone had told me that grown ups are just tall children still wingin’ it (try as they might to make you think otherwise). Maybe I could have been more present on the past days that I don’t hold anymore, and maybe I could have been less hard on myself about protecting the days that aren’t even mine to hold yet. Maybe I can be that someone for you. Here it is: You aren’t expected to know it all, to have the power to change the past, or the power to predict the future. Let that go. You are only asked to be here, now, today. Be still, and rest in knowing that you have a Father who does know it all, and he will hold your hand.
Presence has power because the present tense is all we hold. It is to our advantage to use what we have in our hands right now. Presence becomes our weapon against an enemy that only wants to hold us back. Presence is your superpower; a way for you to fight for your Freedom.
But what do we do when Presence isn’t enough warfare? What if we are present right now, yet we’re still injured and scarred from the thorns of the past? What do we do when a past offense is still offending us today?
You may not even realize that you carry a tool for this very purpose. I didn’t know the power I was holding until I asked for Freedom. With this weapon, we can go into battle. Because this fight for our Freedom— it is a full on war. It is The Truth v. the lier. The Giver v. the destroyer. The Promiser of Eternal Life v. the killer of dreams. Jesus shows his believers how to use this tool to advance us towards our Freedom. The tool is called Forgiveness.
With this tool, our past doesn’t have to be our future. Our mistakes are not our identity. Our misfortune is not the end of our story. Our hardest journeys build endurance, not calluses. Forgiveness sets us free. But see, are we choosing it as much as we could be? We aren’t very quick to forgive others or ourselves, and that’s where the enemy gets in. When we don’t forgive, he has us right where he needs us. Offended. Confused. Afraid. Doubting... Stuck.
It’s just that forgiveness doesn’t come naturally. It doesn’t seem logical when there are clear and present pains and offenses in this life. Is that why it took a supernatural event to teach us the power of Forgiveness? It took a supernatural Savior wearing a crown of thorns to show us the power that Forgiveness has over the darkness.
Forgiveness unties us from anything that tries to hold us back from our best life. Forgiveness makes a way for us to get back to that Garden-like existence— a life of Color and Light, where we walk with Love Himself. In the Garden, our lives bloom with Trust, Hope, Love, Rest, Peace, Joy, and finally, Freedom. Forgiveness is what redeems this dream our creator has for us. It lets us experience a Love so powerful that there is nothing we can do that The Father cannot tend to. Jesus’ forgiveness towards us as he died by man’s violent hand taught us all what we needed to know.
My friend, your Freedom comes when you look directly at what holds you back, and you call it what it is: offense, confusion, fear, doubt. Freedom comes when you stop stepping over it, and finally deal with it. It’s your choice. But might I suggest a little pruning? Cut back the dead branches and make room for color to bloom, for love to bloom, and for lost time to be redeemed.
How cool is it that I can be a free spirit even though I will never be cool enough to deserve it? I am free to just be present right here and right now. Not because I’m so cool that I don’t care, but because I care too much to be cool with anything less. There is more to have and hold than thorns and stickers. And the people in my life today aren’t guaranteed to be here tomorrow. So I choose to forgive so we can get on with the day at hand. Yesterday is not mine anymore, and tomorrow is not mine yet. My life isn’t even mine. I didn’t give it to myself, and I certainly couldn’t save it for myself. Come to think of it, I don’t even know why I’m here. I’m all grown up and all I really know is I need a Guide— someone to take my hand and walk with me. I’m just a child, still in need of a Father.
It was factored in all along: Forgiveness. It was always going to redeem what the dark had broken. Forgiveness would take us back to a Garden-like way. True Freedom grows in a forgiving season, and when your season comes, may you have the courage to pull on your leather gloves, and do the Garden Work. It is your choice: stay stuck in the stickers or run into the sunlit clearing ahead. Forgive and rediscover your childlike Freedom.