Is Freedom Real?

Do you ever feel like your heart hurts? I mean the kind of hurt that comes from conflicting emotions vying to overrule sane thought? Emotions like confusion, disappointment, disgust, pain, compassion, sorrow? I find it very hard to sort through the mass of information, and MISinformation, that is pumped into my head. I hear opposing opinions wherever I turn and talking heads offering reasons our world has turned upside down. The information that is being pushed in our faces ranges from frightening and unbelievable to thought-provoking and inspiring. But as I peruse social media, it seems to me that most people only listen to media sources that support their personal opinion. I see very few people talking to each other in calm and open-minded discussions. Rather there are a whole lot of people making emotionally-charged statements and getting upset with anyone who does not agree with them. It’s hard to hear the voice of truth in all the noise.

For me, there is only one way to calm my mind and be reminded of the source for ultimate truth and peace:

1. I believe God is Sovereign.
2. I believe the Bible is His infallible Living Word.
3. I believe Jesus came to earth as a human to cover our sins with His blood and make it possible for God to once again communicate directly to each of our hearts.
4. I believe God loves every person on this earth because He created each one in His likeness, and He is longing for us to accept His gift of love.
5. I believe He is grieved by the hate and violence that is perpetrated by any person against another.
6. I believe God’s enemy, Satan, has been working to draw all humankind away from The Creator and into sin, rebellion, and disobedience from the day of creation. I believe he has a plan to deceive the hearts of men and convince them that evil is good and good is evil.

I know some people will say I am foolish. They seemingly cannot tolerate a God who claims to be good but allows so much pain and sorrow to abound. Therefore, in their logic, either God is not good, or He does not exist.

But here’s what I think. God did not bring evil into the world. We did. Man has been choosing evil over righteousness from the beginning of time. God does not want to pull the strings of our lives like a puppet master and take away our ability to choose who we will follow. He refuses to force any person to come to Him, but He desperately wants every person to do just that.

So why does God punish the good along with the bad? He doesn’t. He allows humankind to suffer the consequences of our choices. If someone chooses to do evil, it almost always affects someone innocent of that choice. God can intervene, and sometimes does, but not always. Sometimes He allows us to go through suffering for reasons unknown to us. As I look back on my life, I can identify many times when the outcome of situations I lived through could have been very different if God HAD NOT intervened. I learned that He cared for me through those times. But I can also see in my hindsight, situations when I begged God to intervene, and He chose not to do so. It is only now, as I look back, that I can see how those experiences shaped me and reminded me that He never promised I would have no trouble in my life; He only promised He would always be with me.

What if I’m wrong? What if there is no God who created me and the world and all that is in it? What if the Bible is just a book of made-up stories that someone wrote to mislead people? What if Jesus was not who He claimed to be and we have all been fooled into believing a lie? All I can say is this: If I am wrong, when I die I will just float away like dust in the wind and be no more. But if I am right, then there are a whole lot of people who will be surprised when they don’t float away like dust in the wind at the time of their death, but instead are forced to live for eternity in torture, with no hope of escape. I am not willing to take that chance. God does not want any person to have this fate but this earth we live on has an expiration date. We don’t know what that date is, but the day is coming when God can no longer allow Satan to continue deceiving the minds of men. He is waiting patiently for all people to come to Him so that none will be lost, but He also knows there are those who will simply refuse Him, and His heart breaks over those who will be eternally lost and separated from Him.

America has always stood as a symbol of freedom to the world. It has always been the land of opportunity, the place where anything was possible if one was willing to work hard. I still believe America is the best country in the world, but I feel like I’m watching it self-destruct in slow motion. Evil is becoming more blatant and deception and confusion are growing. I don’t think this is because there are more evil people than good people. I think it is because evil people are actively pursuing an agenda to reduce our country to a place where the gospel of Jesus can be stamped out. The other side of that is this: Believers in Jesus are either passive and unwilling to stand for what they know is right, or busy turning others away from Christ with their judgmental behaviors and words.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the fact that I have never felt that it was necessary to always voice my opinion. I am a perfect definition of The Silent Majority. Some people have even mentioned that because I didn’t give an opinion, they assumed I didn’t have one. But that isn’t true at all. I think everyone has an opinion, particularly about things that matter to them, but even for things that don’t affect them, they have thoughts about it. As I pondered this, I decided the reason I don’t speak up more is because I know someone else will. There are so many voices cluttering up the world, that I figured, “why add mine to the cacophony? Someone who believes what I believe will speak out and my opinion will be represented.”

But here’s the deal. I have been wrong. I have been lazy. I have been a consumer instead of a contributor. The things that I know for sure and believe with all my heart are the things I outlined earlier in this somewhat random piece of writing. So why am I not speaking out about those things? Why am I not speaking against those things that give my God a bad name or dishonor Him? I believe what I believe, not because of what I was told to believe by my parents, by my husband, by church leaders–although all of those people have influenced what I believe. But I believe what I believe because God has shown Himself to me in ways that can have no other explanation except that He is who He says He is and He cares about me. He cares about you. He cares about what happens in our lives. Our lives were meant to be a reflection of who God is and He wants us to represent Him well. He wants to use our lives to bring all men to Him before this earth expires. In John 12:46, Jesus said, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.”

Anyone who is a believer in Christ has a responsiblity, a calling, to bring light into the world. We can’t do that by being silent when we see injustice around us. We can’t do that by hanging on the coattails of someone else’s opinion. We can’t do that by making judgments about people who don’t look, behave, or speak like we do. We can only bring light into this world by doing what Jesus did: loving people right where they are and leading them to a place where they can see that God loves them. Jesus was far from silent. He spoke out about God’s love and about loving one another. He also spoke out about standing against the evil in the world that dishonored His Father. His love for us was only second to His love for His Father. He was obedient to the point of death, because it was what He knew He had to do to save us from our own sin nature.

So I’ve decided that my opinion matters to God. Most likely He has helped me form that opinion and I should trust it more. If something doesn’t seem to line up with what I know to be true about Scripture, chances are I need to reject that as false, or “fake news,” to use a term that seems to be floating around. My opinion will no doubt offend someone, even when it is offered in love. There is no one who loves with the passion that Jesus loved and yet His message was so offensive that He was murdered because of it. Should I be less willing that He to let someone “be offended” by the message of love? The message is rejected by those whose eyes have been blinded by the enemy of God. He doesn’t want the scales to fall from their eyes because then they will see him for what he is: the father of lies.

Okay, this has turned into way more than I started out to say, so I need to tie a bow on it and let it go. Here’s my final words. If you are a follower of Christ, then you (and I) should feel compelled to hold up every opinion that tries to take root and compare it to what Jesus taught. This is not an easy thing to do, because the father of lies is very good at making wrong seem right. Nonetheless, this is the only way we will find truth. We will not find it on any news channel, from any politician, from any celebrity or any person of great influence–unless that person is grounded in God’s Word. This is not to say that God cannot and does not use imperfect people to advance His Kingdom. But the truth of who we are, why we are here, and what eternity holds for us is found only in the message that has survived thousands of years.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16