Our Freedom of Choice is Sacred... and Absolute--ly limited
“FREEDOM!!!”... bellows the soulful cry of Sir William
Wallace in the epic story “Braveheart” as he accepts certain death in
preference to bending a knee to tyranny.
It is primal to the human experience, this innate passion to be free, to
control one’s own destiny as the master of one’s fate. This sacred desire is embedded in the core of
our being and is rightly affirmed if we are to be other than an indistinct
extension of our Father in heaven. To be fully human, freedom of choice must stand
inviolate… but not without bounds.
As has been said of fire, freedom is a dangerous servant and
a fearful master. When prematurely
granted in measure beyond that of the requisite wisdom to use it properly, it
produces only chaos and destruction.
Metered appropriately though, it becomes an essential stimulant not only
for human development but for the growth of all living things. No one would argue that a firm grip on a
young child’s hand is necessary to avoid disaster when crossing a busy highway.
By the same token, a young seedling’s
movement must be limited by the stake until the wind tested strength of its inner
fiber grows to render such external restraint unnecessary.
Clearly we must all be allowed a certain amount of slack in
the tie that binds us to our Father in Heaven, but never should we imagine that
this protective leash would be irresponsibly loosened beyond what is helpful to
our progress. And who among us can
honestly say even after a long lifetime on earth that we are truly ready for
the rope to be severed completely?
The need for age appropriate freedom in our physical and
emotional maturity may be self evident to most but when it comes to our spiritual
development, the widely accepted conventional Christian wisdom of our day would
have us awash in unlimited freedom right out of the chute. We are somehow deemed capable from birth or
certainly by the ‘age of accountability’ – age nine-ish, or so – of making right
choices regarding all things spiritual, up to and including where we will spend
the rest of eternity!
Worse yet we are taught that all we have to do to get God to
leave us alone completely is to just repeatedly ignore His voice when He comes
looking for us. “Behold, I stand at the
door and knock…”, we are reminded in sermon after sermon as the preacher
rightly extols the virtue of Christ’s gentle approach in wooing us. So far so good, but then comes the pitifully
inadequate conclusion which renders God’s will for us completely ineffectual. As I was told in one Sunday service years
ago, “Out of respect for our
individuality and for our sacred freedom of choice Jesus will not barge into
our life uninvited. His polite display
of good manners in the courting of our souls is akin to that of a ‘perfect
gentleman’. And if rejected one time
too many, He will walk away sadly and never bother us again. For
him to insist on a relationship, the preacher howled, would really amount to nothing
short of spiritual rape!”
How strange it is that in numerous other sermons given by
the same preacher it had been rigorously explained that the man on the other
side of that door to which Jesus is rapping his knuckles is blind, or at least
“sees through a glass darkly”. He is “ever
hearing” but not understanding… has been consigned by God Himself to
disobedience… and really for all practical purposes is dead (in sin). In other
words he is truly incapable of responding.
Yet the “Savior” timidly waits for the dead man to respond, as though He
were totally unaware of the condition of the poor wretch.
For argument’s sake, however, let’s assume for the moment that
the man in question (really a child in God’s eyes) is completely capable of
answering the knock, perhaps marginally incapacitated by his sinful nature but
in no way prevented from rising to the occasion. His refusal to do so should then rightly be
viewed simply as an act of rebellion. But
even in this context, with the eternal stakes being so high, is it right that
the Savior would allow such behavior to continue to its logical conclusion through His own refusal to intervene? Could we
imagine even an earthly father waiting for a child’s permission to apply
corrective action in such a case? Or would
he not be expected to proceed straight away to “violate” the kid’s freedom of
choice, knocking down the door if need be and using to righteous advantage his
parental authority in rescuing the clueless child from his youthful ignorance
of what is good for him?
It would be unimaginable for us as parents to give our
consent, whether passively or actively, to our children’s acts of self
destruction no matter how much they begged for the freedom to do so. And
yet, constrained as we are by our mortal limitations, we may indeed be forced
to let go of them entirely when they come of age and choose to leave home
against our better judgment. However,
this is a parental impediment that does not exist for our Heavenly Father. Not only is He never forced to release
control, but unlike an earthly father whose influence on the child is at best a
mixed bag of blessing and curse, God is the perfect
Father whose imminent presence is not only completely beneficial to us but
absolutely essential to our well being and spiritual development.
Knowing therefore that an intimate relationship with Him is
the only “thing” that will truly bring satisfaction to our souls, how is it to
be imagined that Perfect Love’s response to our continual ‘turning away’ could
ever come to be one of resignation, saying in effect… “Oh well, I guess you must
just want to be miserable after all”.
Why would He who has the ability to win even the most obstinate soul
back to perfect union, set an arbitrary time limit (life on earth) that would
ensure His eternal separation from most of His kids? Why would He do so when allowing just a few
more moments (on the time scale of eternity) for the complete unfolding of His impeccable
parental strategies would result in none being lost to the guiles of Satan? And what wayward children wouldn’t be glad in
retrospect to have had the premature granting of their independence averted by
a loving father intent only on ensuring the realization of all the desires of
their heart?
Thankfully the Bible is sufficiently clear on the Gospel message
to leave no doubt that God has no intention of standing by idly while His
children (any of them) ignorantly choose a lesser path for all eternity. How shamefully twisted is the widely held view
of our God that while He insists that we approach Him as a child, totally
trusting in His ability to care for our needs, in reality He will abandon that
trust in a heartbeat when the time of His longsuffering comes to an end. How wonderful it is to understand this to be
nothing more than a gross misrepresentation of His true nature. We can
in confidence come to Him as a child, cashing in on His promise of rest for our
weary souls. He is the Love from which nothing can separate us, and that which He
wills for us will be accomplished,
for there is none able to oppose that will.
And unlike our neurotic earthly parents, our Father in heaven
will never give in to the bratty ranting of His children. He will neither grant that which is being
demanded nor by knee jerk reaction lash out in anger with that which the child
“deserves”, but rather will always patiently provide exactly what the child truly
needs. The story of Helen Keller in “The Miracle
Worker” portrays a wonderful example of the inner beauty awaiting release in us
all if only someone would dare give us what we need in spite of what we ask for.
Obviously our Father in Heaven carefully monitors our
activities, and must at times directly overrule our “sacred” freedom of
choice. To think otherwise is to recklessly impugn His
parental skills to a level below that of the proverbial deadbeat dad. And how
arrogant it is to reckon our own will as possessing not only equal authority to that of the Almighty,
but greater! For it has become a staunchly defended
pillar of the faith to profess that, where our will to destroy ourselves stands
in conflict with His will to restore, it is our will absolutely which must preside, even to the point of eternal
separation and damnation. As Jesus rhetorically
recanted such thinking, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give
him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who
ask him?” (Matthew 7:9-11 NIV)
Away with such aberrations of an impotent idol made in our
image, so pitifully incapable of raising His children up to freely love him in
return. Where our earthly parents have let
us down, He will not. “Though your
mother may forget you, I will not” (Isaiah
49:15 NIV) “If you make your bed in
Hell, behold I am there.” (Psalms 139:8 KJV).
He started the ball rolling without seeking our consent… “Where were you when I laid the earth’s
foundation?” (Job 38:4 NIV)… and He will finish the task in like manner, although
progressively gaining our total consent in the process. His parenting skills are above reproach and,
of all the children He has sired, He will
lose none. All
will freely choose to take their appointed place in the Holy (whole-y…
whole-some) family, eternally grateful that their sacred freedom of choice had
been absolute--ly limited.
