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Let Freedom Ring!

From Memorial Day to Labor Day, I love to think about freedom. So, I display the red, white, and blue, make potato salad, and celebrate those who have sacrificed to make us free. But freedom from tyranny through wars and conflict isn’t the only freedom that I celebrate.

See, I have experienced freedom from fear.

Fear is debilitating but it likes to hide so that we humans can’t find it, recognize it, or deal with it. But fear is real. It can be inherited from family patterns, which can be very difficult to recognize. The Scripture proclaims these words, “Fear Not,” many times—over 300 times actually. Christians work to live in obedience to Scripture but, if you’re like me, fear kept me from understanding that those proclamations were for me too—not just for biblical characters.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to face fear head on. I had to decide if fear would overpower me or if, through the battle that had been waged on the cross for deliverance from the reign of sin, I had the power through Christ to rise above the tendrils of fear. Those tendrils wanted to keep me strapped down, powerless, and living without the abundant life that Jesus said that followers had through him.

So, I decided to take God at his word and fear not. The result has been freedom! Freedom to enjoy this life. Freedom to look forward to the next stage of life—the everlasting kind. Freedom not to fear growing older, but to enjoy all of the stages of life and to embrace what those stages bring. Freedom to have the courage to take on the roles that God has for me.

I do celebrate freedom from tyranny through wars and conflict but in more ways than just the 4th of July kind. The tyranny that I recognize most is the reign of sin. The war that continues to wage is for the souls of men and women. The conflict is the ongoing challenge that freedom is for me, and for you, and for everyone living on this earth, thanks to the amazing and often taken for granted work of Jesus on the cross. He didn’t stay there. He is risen. He is free. And he provides freedom to his beloved ones. Let freedom ring!

Becky Towne
Pastoral Team (Administration)

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