First published in the Baptist Times - OUTSIDE EDGE column - 22 October 2010
Praying with someone who suffers from sex addiction, I mentioned that our church is currently doing the Freedom in Christ programme, and offered an invitation. The reaction was total horror: ‘The last thing I want is freedom! I don’t trust myself to be free!’
We were clearly assuming different definitions of freedom. I presumed that freedom would always be seen as a blessing. I hadn’t thought that the concept might, to someone struggling to curb a compulsion, spell loss of control, danger and insecurity. It got me thinking about the ways the Son sets us, such diverse individuals, free.
Our home group leader ran the Freedom in Christ DVD, the first of a series designed to shift God’s message of love from head to heart. But words are processed by the head, and people were tired after work. During the hour-long talk, two people fell asleep, one said the repetitions made him feel brainwashed, and the rest admitted losing concentration.
No one wanted to miss finding freedom in Jesus, and others reputedly have found the course life-enhancing, so we’ve committed to persevere, while trying not to let it become a burden.
Someone suggested watching a bit of the talk then discussing, and everyone agreed, though with a certain heaviness of spirit because doing the course means missing our normal unstructured meetings for 13 weeks.
Some of my favourite meetings have evolved when, prefacing a bible study or discussion with a couple of worship songs, we somehow keep singing and praising till suddenly hours have gone by and it’s time to go home. That feels like freedom.
Or when, over the initial tea and coffee, someone opens their heart about something that’s bothering them and everyone prays intently.
Or the evenings that start with inane giggling and spluttered Hobnob crumbs and then become deeply serious and spiritual. Or the other way round, even.
But feeling free - which is a nice feeling - is not necessarily the same thing as being freed, which may be a painful process involving restrictions and discipline.
Last week in the prison we discussed anger - Jesus’ and ours. Some inmates said they weren’t free to express their anger, the way they would ‘on the outside.’ Another said no, they were free; people could and did shout at the guards, fight each other or trash their cells - but they reaped the consequences.
It was a good point: freedom to choose doesn’t carry a guarantee of protection from the results. It would hardly count as free will, if every alternative had the same outcome.
The feeling of freedom and oneness with Jesus arrives sometimes unexpectedly, in a prison chapel or home group, in a comforting place or a bleak one. Prayer bubbles to the surface in a traffic jam or over the washing up, yet stubbornly resists being summoned on appropriate occasions. A colleague confessed, ‘I go to church but I can’t really pray there. I never feel close to God like I do at home.’
If everyone experienced freedom identically, then enabling people to feel close to God would be easy. Personally, I would equip every church member with snorkel and flippers and tip them into 60 foot of clear warm sea, with advice to marvel at God’s extraordinary underwater creativity. But the God of biodiversity, who created cougars and congers and gave them opposite environments in which to be free, might do it differently.
Freedom, in God’s terms, might come to one person during a prison term, rehab clinic, or through enforced and unwanted celibacy.
To another person it may come through agreeing not to feel guilty, enjoying life and allowing for times of superficiality.
If the Son sets you free, as he wants to, how will he do it for you?
I don’t know, but you can ask him. Feel free.
Clare Nonhebel’s new book ‘Finding Oasis,’ publ. Authentic Media, is on sale in bookshops or online
