What Price Freedom?

I woke up this morning with a thought I’ve not been able to shake, and since I consider you my brothers and friends I thought I’d bounce it off you, let it rattle around your heads for a while and see if my reasoning makes sense.

It’s strange to me that people who have never had freedom, men and women who grew up in oppressed environments and know what it is to live under the thumb of totalitarianism, will often risk their lives to attain it, while those who have had freedom for all of their lives neither treasure it, appreciate it, nor defend it.

Never mind the fact that those who’ve always had freedom do not treasure or defend it, many despise it, and desire to do away with it.

If you want to know how precious freedom is, if you want to know how priceless being free is, you need look no further than Christ’s own words who said that the truth was the only thing that could make us free.

“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Odd choice of wording don’t you think? He could have said the truth would make us wealthy, he could have said the truth would make us popular, he could have said the truth would make us famous, he could have said the truth would make us successful, but Jesus said the truth would make us free.

To be free! There is nothing more precious in this world than to be free, to possess the truth which is Christ, and thereby be made free.

And yet, here we are, all but ready to sacrifice our freedom for healthcare or college tuition, or whatever else the politicians are promising the foolish and gullible nowadays.

Anything that men promise you, no matter how attractive, is not worth the price of your freedom. Don’t you see that? Doesn’t that register somewhere deep down? Does it not resonate on a very basic and fundamental level?

I’m watching what is transpiring in this nation as well as the world and I am in awe of man’s self-destructive tendencies and his willingness to voluntarily enslave himself. We have been so dumbed down, we have been so desensitized in our modern age that many consider that if they have their twitter, their Facebook and their YouTube, then they have all they’ll ever need.

Men of past generations sacrificed all they had up to and including their lives in order to taste freedom but for a breath before they died, and here we are throwing it all away as though it were some worthless thing, some inconvenience, something to be ashamed or embarrassed of.

Do we still deserve to be free given our lethargy? 

Do we still deserve to be free given our indifference? 

Do we still deserve to be free given our betrayal of all that is true and just and wholesome?

Does a nation that despises the principles which brought it to its place of prominence in the world deserve to retain its prominence while shunning the principles?

These are questions with which we must contend as sober individuals. These are questions with which we must contend as fathers and mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers because the issue isn’t so much about us, but rather what we leave behind for those who are yet to understand the beauty that is freedom, and the ability to earn one’s way through this present life with hard work and determination.

I don’t know, I’m just frustrated. All things considered I’ll likely be dead in thirty years if the Lord terries, but I have a daughter to think about, I have her future to consider, and this is why I do what I can just so I can say I didn’t sit on my hands, just so I could say I didn’t bury my head in the sand, just so other men’s blood will not be on my conscience when the end comes.

Freedom is a fickle thing. It is something very difficult to truly acquire, and something very easy to relinquish. I for one take no comfort in the ‘whatever will be will be’ attitude, because the Word of God confirms our long held beliefs that the prayer of the saints does sway the heart of God, that we are able to intercede and stand in the gap and be an instrument of change whether in our families, in our communities, and yes, even in our nation.

I will not surrender to the darkness because of the inevitability of its progress. I will resist it with every fiber of my being, I will fight against it, I will rage against it, because although we were called to be humble we were never called to be timid. We were called to do right, to defend righteousness, to stand for holiness, and to savor the gift of freedom while we still have it in abundance.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.