April 25, 2012
Territorial
Although Charlie belongs to my daughter, he is somewhat of a family dog
so I occasionally take him for walks. When Charlie gets to pick the path we
take, he often chooses to go past one particular house where a black lab in a
fenced yard lives. As each dog sizes up the other I can’t help but wonder if
they might envy the other’s freedom. One dog is free to roam in the confines of
the yard, the other is free to go as far and as wide as the leash allows…and
yet both lay claim to their own territory. “I
will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.” (Psalms
119:45 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I’ve never been able to grasp the concept of freedom as I hear it used. I can not see how being on a leash is free. I can not see how being fenced in is free. I would count freedom as a useless term if it were not for the fact that the Bible uses it heavily.
-----”I will walk about in freedom...” What if I wanted to fly about. I could hardly do that. I could maybe pay an airfare and fly about. But I would then have to be constrained to the carrier’s flight path. The “about” to where the flying would go would be out of my control. Again I would not be free. I would love to walk about when dinosaurs were alive. I have a lot of questions needing answers regarding dinosaurs. But I’m not too free to do that, either. In fact, what person having freedom would not immediately use that freedom to supply and make comfortable his living arrangements, making work easier and more rewarding and play more fulfilling and beneficial? But it is hard work, consistency, and learning that can only do that if other circumstances beyond your control are correct. The fact is, reality has a very heavy set of restraints placed upon freedom. And my mind can not grasp restrained freedom.
-----I believe this age we live in has no consistency or substance able to bear up with conceptual absolutes. It certainly has its own set of absolutes in the laws of physics (which also go fuzzy at their extremities.) But perfection, freedom, love, and such just don’t fit well here without either restricting their meaning to contextual senses or examining them from only philosophical angles. So, people go away saying there are no absolutes. I won’t join them. I go away saying there is nothing of this age to which absolute meanings can attach. That is why we do not experience absolutes here. But there are definitely absolutes. Our present conditions just have no truck with them.
-----So, back to freedom. When I hear this term my mind does not first go to the concepts of autonomy and initiative. It searches for the aspects of the situation in which a freedom is being referenced. From these I can develop a sense concerning the limits set about the freedom so that I can imagine freely partaking in its restricted area. What more can you expect of a twisted and broken existence?
-----Yet without bounds and restrictions, Christ has set us free. The corral gate is open wide; indeed, it’s probably blown off its hinges. More than philosophically that is freedom to me, even though I am still in the corral. That freedom attaches to the very most important part of me possible, because the saving work Christ did in destroying the bondage to death my sin made blew that gate clear across the gulch. And something as absolute as the freedom we have in Christ does attach to my spirit because in being made alive it has become made of the substance of the coming perfect age having most natural and attractive attachments for absolutes like perfection, freedom, love. It is my body, this load of physical stuff, that is the staying in the corral, the point where freedom experiences restrictions. Until the Lord carries me through the gate it is my responsibility to develop a sense of being in the corral that will make the most of available freedom for anyone I effect. And while in the corral, I even enjoy my absolute freedom by keeping my mind fixed on that open gate.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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