The past year has been quite the journey for me. I've done a lot of wrestling. A lot of seeking. A lot of discovering. A lot of change. I've wrestled with God, I've wrestled with myself. And I'm in the process of freeing myself.
I was thinking more about the whole nakedness thing that I talked about in this post. I think nakedness and freedom are interwoven. We often live as slaves without even realizing it. We're restricted. We're slaves to the masks we wear, we let fear control us. Fear of the unknown. Fear of nakedness. Fear of rejection. We're slaves to the opinions of others. We become dependent on what others will think. Always denying ourselves to please others. Always forfeiting our happiness "for the sake of others". That's what we tell ourselves anyway. But I don't think it needs to be that way. I don't think we need to forfeit our freedom and happiness to also be considerate of others and live in humility.
Freedom isn't about doing whatever you want and only pleasing yourself. It's having the right or ability to do whatever you want. It's "the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved". And that is a beautiful thing.
I was recently reading Hebrews 4, where the author talks about entering God's rest. Matthew Henry's notes of vs 10 are this: "Every true believer hath ceased from his own works of righteousness, and from the burdensome works of the law…" then he pointed me to Matthew 11:28. We all know the verse. "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Henry's notes on this verse, "the Jews suffered under a heavy load of religious responsibilities laid on them by priests, rabbis, scribes and Pharisees. Rest is a relief from this burden." And it hit me in a way it never had before. It made Matthew 11:28 so much more beautiful to me. All wrestling I've been doing. The debates in my head. Struggling to find the Truth. Wrestling with religion and church and God and what it all really means--- it was exhausting. It was burdensome. But Jesus tells me to just come to Him and He will give me rest.
Freedom. That's what I'm working towards. And it's a beautiful thing.
