Freedom Song

I am well aware that life on the planet is wrought with all kinds of "stuff" no one expected, wanted, asked, bargained, thought would happen to them, planned ahead, desired, wished, longed, awaited, anticipated, got giddy over or welcomed with open arms.  Sometimes life just seems hard.

I get it.  Hard is something I've walked in ... several times.

But, life is also full of times that take your breath away, take you by surprise, astound you, leave you with mouth gaping, provoke goosebumps, cause smiles to erupt, turn out just as you thought, are better than expected, blow your mind, cause water to drip from dry eyes, fill you with hope, surround you with peace, and give you such contentment you think you may explode.  Sometimes life just seems beautiful.

I get it.  Beautiful is something I've walked in ... several times.

As I get older, I do notice that usually the roads of life are marked with both the hard and the beautiful.  It's neither all bad nor all good. Along the road, there are moments of both.  It's the contrast of the beautiful in the middle of the hard that makes the beautiful more ... beautiful.  Even a small light in a dark place gets noticed.

I'm writing while walking a road packed with experiences that for me, are dual in beauty and hard.  Last week, while trying to get my head into a place of rest in the middle of being in church, I struggled.  The stuff from my week, and quite frankly just moments before walking into the place of encounter with Jesus sat at the forefront of my brain.  The brain was too big for heart and way too big for Spirit.  It had full command of all my senses.  I stood quietly while others around me expressed worship in ways too mobile for me to even entertain.  I was in a secret place doing battle.

I heard words from a familiar song about freedom.  Freedom, in theory, is beautiful but comes with a great price.  Someone always has to pay.  As I moved from brain into Spirit and heart, I got a beautiful sense that the One I had come to encounter was saying something to me in that place that seemed so kinetic.

I am free not to respond according to how I normally do.  Jesus took that to the cross, too!

I'm human.  Hard has to be processed through this nervous system and put somewhere.  However, because of the price Jesus paid for me on the cross, and because of the new life in the Spirit that I've been given, I don't have to be bound by the constraints of normal reactions.

Hard comes in.  I can process.  But then I've got a choice.  What do I do with the "hard"?  I can hold on to it, review it - over and over, analysis it, caress it, own it, personalize it, give it more strength than it deserves and idolize it.  Or ... I can do what I was created to do at the moment of conversion ... overcome it.  That's what my new identity in Christ affords me.  That's what my freedom, purchased with the highest price, bought for me - the ability to overcome.  And, the best part, it's not about self-effort.  It's not about being good, being better, being more, doing good, doing better, doing more.  It's about surrender.  It's about facing the incoming hard with the knowledge that I am not able, on my own, to do one thing about it.  But, giving the hard to the One that paid for my freedom to respond like a human and replaced it with the ability to respond in Him, through the Spirit, in a way that makes the hard bow to the beautiful.

Hard means facing a cross, knowing the price that it would cost, and surrendering anything of self and giving permission to the Spirit to react as it was intended.  That's the example of Jesus.  That's what I can set my sights on.

Our freedom didn't come cheap.  Our "hard" isn't meant to be trudged through with heavy feet doing the best we can.  That's not what our freedom purchased.  How dare we be uninformed about the cost that was paid and what the cost afforded us!  Freedom to go through "hard" not as we, as weak humans trying to find a way out, but as children set free by a loving God who has given us the ability to overcome!

Be informed, those who know Jesus, of the freedom you have!  Freedom is yours!  Choose it today!  Have the courage to activate that which was given to you, paid for with a high price, and offered to you as your right as one in Christ!

Singing a freedom song,
Christina