Mary Alice McGinnis
May 183 min
by Mary Alice McGinnis
How would you describe freedom? What word or phrases come to mind when you think about what it means to live in freedom?
The Oxford dictionary suggests these definitions:
“The power or right to act, think or speak as one wants without hinderance or restraint.”
For this definition they suggest these synonyms: prerogative, privilege, entitlement.
The next definition says: “Absence of subject of foreign domination.”
They suggest these synonyms in this case: independence, self-rule, self-determination.
The final definition in Oxford’s dictionary says: “The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.” These synonyms are suggested here: liberty, liberation, deliverance.
Suppose you have decided to go to a store and buy a goldfish. You bring the goldfish home, fill up the fish tank with water and ensure it has proper pH level. Then you add some plants, which will ensure the water is properly oxygenated. Then, you also add some rocks and a shelter for the goldfish to swim around and hide in. Got this picture in your mind?
Suppose that this goldfish decides he wants to be "free." How might that play out? What will happen if he decides that he wants to live “without the hinderance or restraint” of the walls of the fish tank. Maybe he might think, “I am tried of being subject to my master. I want to make my own rules and be independent.” So he jumps out of the confines of the fish tank to “freedom” only to find himself helplessly stranded on the floor, gasping for breath.
You as the loving master, gently pick up the floundering goldfish from the floor, and gently return him to the safety of the fish tank.
This is how today’s reading describes us: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.” Wow! Language like this could make us feel pretty entitled, right?
But then Peter says, “so that…” In other words, for a purpose!! And what is that purpose? “To declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
We have each gone our own way. We have looked for a worldly kind of freedom. We have searched for prerogative, privilege, entitlement. We are bent on our own independence and self-rule, resisting anyone whose restrictions try to tell us how to act, think or speak.
But what we thought would bring us freedom only lands us on the floor, grasp for breath. We find ourselves in the darkness of the deepest kind of slavery. We needed someone to liberate us, to deliver us to set us TRULY free.
Peter invites us to “Live as free people . . .” Not under the cloak of evil and darkness, but as free people under the divine care and protection of our Master.
True freedom is not the liberty to do as we please. It is the power, through Jesus’ redemption of our identity as His beloved, to live as we were meant to live.
Lord, thank You that you have redeemed me! You have claimed me as Your own special possession. I am no longer a slave to darkness, I have been set free by Your grace! Help me to use my freedom, not indulge my own self-seeking pleasures, but to declare Your praises all the days of my life.