Freedom

The following is a copy of the Thomas Question email devotional. You can subscribe to the email edition from our website and tune into our podcast.

This is a bit longer and more abstract, but worth reading (I think).

Let me start with a question. What is freedom? Is it a decision? Is free will an ability ingrained in us like moving or breathing or blinking our eyes? Can we choose it in a single step? We can make choices – or at least we feel like we can – of this there can be no doubt. It’s the idea which underpins our justice system. We hold you responsible for your choices because we believe you are responsible for them. But I wonder if this is all we need to know. After all, do you make all the choices you want to make? Is it as easy as simply deciding – and then it happens? What about the five pounds or the five bad habits you’ve chosen to be rid of at least a hundred times already?

At least twice in scripture we catch of whiff of something otherwise. In 1 Corinthians 8:9, we find out that the exercise of our freedom can be an impediment to someone else and in Galatians 5.1, we find out that certain exercises our freedom can diminish it in us. And certainly you are aware that you sometimes have more control over yourself than at other times. Freedom is starting to seem a whole lot more complicated. And I must admit that I’m fascinated with the stuff that lies beneath our personal freedom – and makes it possible.

Consider what you’d be like after a week without food and shelter. Consider what you’d be like at the end of any period of extreme deprivation. What would it do to your constitution? Your appetites would rule you in a way that left your freedom completely drowned out – at least for the moment. So it seems that some choices leave us with less freedom at the end of them. Like a choice to go for a whole week without food.

On the other hand, at moments when most of our needs are met and our minds are uncluttered with heavy compulsions, we can exercise great clarity of thought and have a high degree of control over ourselves. Large choices can come easily to us in an atmosphere like that. 30 minutes after I get out of bed, I feel like I can take on the whole world. So clearly some choices – those that meet our basic needs – can lead to greater personal freedom.

So maybe freedom is a state – like health is a state. It’s a condition affected by many choices. So it’s not so much any one thing you do, but it’s the effect of many things you do averaged over time. I can think of a single choice you can make which would diminish your health (any sport involving the word “extreme” as a qualifier as an example), but I can’t think of a matching single choice that could multiply your health (unless it was a pill you needed to address a specific condition – like high blood pressure or a single choice to have a daily habit – but that’s not one choice, is it?).

No, it seems that the state of our health is decided by many individual choices made over longer periods of time. So I wonder if the level of our personal freedom – the state of being able to make larger choices and more of them – is somehow just like that. Clearly the “satisfied life” has more benefits than just what it makes you feel in any given moment.

This Sunday we’re starting a whole new series entitled, “A Guide to the Satisfied Life” and we’ll start by taking a look at personal freedom. I hope to see you there and I hope you bring someone with you.

CSW

COMMUNION
Monica and I did it last week – and we highly recommend it. Communion didn’t start out as a small part of a church service involving plastic cups and plastic tasting wafers. It started as a meal with friends that became a symbol of a Kingdom. So we had some people for dinner, left a chair at the table empty (we’ll tell you why on Sunday) and experienced the thing Jesus chose as a symbol of heaven. Try it this fall at The Thomas Question.

LAST SUNDAY
The Problem with a Dream. You can listen on our podcast or visit our website.

THIS SUNDAY
A Guide to the Satisfied Life: The Thing About Freedom.

NEXT SUNDAY
A Guide to the Satisfied Life: The Things to use your Freedom For.

DON'T FORGET
Tell someone about the Thomas Question, our podcast or the website. You never know.