Speaking in the Light – 6-30

Freedom Like it Was Meant to Be
Freedom does not mean being able to do whatever you want to do. To attack a day with no rules or boundaries to keep you in check is truly a dangerous way to attempt to navigate this journey here on planet earth. It is just that kind of devil may care approach to life by too many selfish individuals that has stolen precious hours for countless others. One joker does spoil the deck and one wild card makes the game practically meaningless.
During a week that this great country of ours will be putting the spotlight on our independence, let us not forget that we only achieved victory because our forefathers came together and depended upon one another to buy into a common goal and play in harmony so that an enemy could be defeated.
If those men who signed the Declaration of Independence each marched according to the cadence of their own drum beat, than that Liberty Bell would still be in one piece today because there would have been no reason to let it ring.
I guess that I fear that this great land of ours has become so watered down in its belief systems that because we don’t stand for any one thing, we have become oh so vulnerable to fall for anything. I hate this wishy-washy political correctness of our times. If this was the temperament of the culture in 1776, there would have been no United States.
This lack of backbone mentality of our age has everyone running from the responsibility to be a role model. It disregards the importance of our leaders coming out and telling the whole truth and it makes a joke of the need for internal integrity. If grown men and women can lie right to our faces and keep their offices and continue to be millionaires, why should young people feel the need to be honest? This mindset displays an outright disrespect of all that our country has stood for through the years.
I shudder when I see others tarnish the golden rule and refuse to treat their neighbors with respect and just do the right thing for one another. If nobody knows the definition of what the right thing is anymore, then we will continue to have instances like we did in our neighboring New York earlier this April when 25 people walked right over a man.
Not one of them would come to the aid of this homeless man as he lay right before their very eyes, dying in the street. In any language, in whatever religion, this was immoral and wrong and deserves no excuse.
I’m thinking that we could use a hero right about now. I’m thinking we need some people who will know the truth and tell the truth and allow the truth to set people free. And don’t give me this, “well what is true for you may not be true for me,” lingo. It is time to hold one another accountable again to the laws of the heart and not the ways of the flesh.
Lying to protect your own bad behavior is wrong. Breaking marriage vows purposely to commit adultery with a partner who is not your own is not OK. Abusing children is an abomination. Driving drunk and then killing an innocent victim is no joking matter.
Men not stepping up to be strong for their families and women who have had to do the work of both sexes can not be acceptable as just the way it is. Call me crazy, but I’m hoping that common men and women will come together and proclaim, “Enough is Enough,” and just start doing the right thing by one another.
I believe that we are born with a conscious-ness of what is right and what is wrong. This is what makes us different than the animals. We humans know what love is. We know what it honorable and what is deplorable. It is time to stop living like life is a baseball game with no bases and no ground rules and no boundaries and no purpose. A race that has no starting gate and no finish line is just a random waste of energy.
God has put His image in our soul and it is time to live like freedom is a trust to guard and not just a treasure to waste. Our legacy is at stake and our destination has got to be more than just the desire that a good time was had by all.
Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. (John 8:32).” When people in those days came to know the truth in their hearts, it caused major changes in their lives. Those who were stealing stole no more. Those who had lived by no rules and found themselves totally tied up suddenly found a whole new world for themselves by coming into line with the ways that God had always meant for them to love.
We need to love God with all of our hearts and souls and mind and strength and then love our neighbors as ourselves. In between those two buoys, those two markers, you can find wide open waters to sail into the wind and discover a life that matters.
But freedom isn’t doing whatever you want. It is allowing yourself to become the person that God always meant for you to be. But for that to happen, it means declaring your independence from your own ways and pledging allegiance to a higher authority. It isn’t too late to begin to let freedom ring once again. It needs to start in your own heart. Will you answer the bell?
Write Pastor Rudy pastorrudytlc@comcast.net