Finding Freedom

A friend had the following lyrics playing in his head... it made me think:

I left home when I was seventeen
I just grew tired of falling down
And I'm sure I was told
The allure of the road
Would be all I found

And all the answers that I started with
Turned out questions in the end
So years roll on by
And just like the sky
The road never ends

(Chorus:)
And the people who love me still ask me
When are you coming back to town
And I answer quite frankly
When they stop building roads
And all God needs is gravity to hold me down

(Chorus:)
And the people who love me still ask me
When are you coming back to town
And I answer quite frankly
When they stop building roads
And there ain't no more highways to be found
And I answer quite frankly
When they stop building roads
And all God needs is gravity to hold me down

What if gravity was the only thing that held us down? What if...

In this station in life (with the transitions and the stress and the newness), I feel that God is trying to teach me three major things:
1. To live in community and rely on others (a future blog maybe)
2. To walk in freedom - to be myself both the strengths and the weaknesses
3. To take responsibility for my mess

This week at youth group we will be talking about integrity (our character unit). Integrity is defined as:
1 the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness
2 the state of being whole and undivided
3 the condition of being unified, unimpaired, or sound in construction

We often focus on the first definition, but neglect the second and third. Integrity/honesty/truth has to do with being whole and undivided, being unified and unimpaired (free?).

We live in a society of lies and though we know that we shouldn't tell lies to other people, we consistently construct worlds of lies in which we live. We choose darkness, self-abasement, and division instead of choosing freedom.

Last night we met with a group that had gone to the Leadership Summit. We've been talking about balance and, last month, shared ways that we needed to pursue balance. One woman talked about how much she works. From our last conversation, she felt freed to leave work at home. She is happier, smiling. and full of joy because she is free. She can be defined by who she is and not what she does. On the flip side, my boss (a pastor) has felt bound by traditional definitions of Sabbath. He has decided to free himself to "grab sabbath" whenever he can instead of being bound in a day of the week. He is more freed.

Jesus said that his burden is easy and his yolk is light. Jesus is interested in giving us freedom.... in fact freewill is so important to God that he built it into us. Freewill isn't a bad thing... it is a very good thing. I can be free.

Increasingly I want to become a person who walks in the confidence and honesty of who God has made me - aware of my gifts, my strengths, my weaknesses, etc. As I am confident that God made me the way he meant to make me, I can be less of an issue and I can walk forward - boldly. I can walk away from all the things that hold me down.

Maybe God sent me to the middle of the country, away from my family and all the things that defined me for so long, so that he could define me and I could stretch out in freedom. The heartland is the land of freedom and space.

I want to own the truth of who I am in God, in community/family, and in myself. I want to ride on the coattails of the Giant, but I can't get off the ground if I let so many things hold me down.