How our freedom should be
WE often ask these questions. How should our freedom be?What law governs it? Where can we find a model or pattern for it?
Many people, of course, have their own ideas of freedom.But if we really want to know what it is, where it can be found, howit should be exercised, etc., we have nothing to do other than to lookat God who is the source and end of freedom—and God in relation to us.Without referring to God, our idea of freedom can be anything but theright one.
And what can we see in God with respect to freedom? Thedirect answer is that God did everything for us completely free,without any special reason, without any pressure. We can say that hedid all those wonderful things for us because he just wants to.
What he did and continues to do to us can only becharacterized as being completely free. It was pure grace,unadulterated gratuitousness. That in the end is what freedom is all
about.He created us freely. There was no necessity on his partto create us. But he did it just the same.
And even if we spoiled his original design for us byfalling into sin, by going against his will which can only be good forus, he did not leave us and, instead, promised to redeem us. He wouldhave lost nothing nor gained anything if he would have just allowed usto get lost. But, no, he preferred to save us. There was no necessity for him to send his son who becameman to redeem us. But he did it—completely freely.
He is willing to assume all our sins without committingsin. He offers us boundless mercy for the taking. He did all thesecompletely freely, completely gratuitously. He actually gains nothing,but we gain everything if we follow him in living that kind offreedom.
We cannot deny that this freedom as shown by God is noteasy to learn. But we have to reassure ourselves that God actually hasalso given us all the graces and means for us to learn and live it. Wejust have to be humble enough to defer to this kind of freedom, theonly true freedom, rather than subscribing to our own ideas of it.This is the freedom of the children of God, not the freedom of thechildren of the world.
This is the freedom that leads us to the truth and to oureternal destination and heaven. It knows how to cope with all thesituations of our earthly life. It does not give us false hopes norlead us to fantasies.
