...for freedom...

It's been an incredibly long time since I've been on this thing...but I heard a story yesterday that I thought I just had to share.
The story is of a man in the late 1700s who worked in the office of a local factory.  Times were hard for his family, and they needed money to pay off some debt, so he began to embezzle funds from the owner.  Of course, he was caught and put in prison.  Prison for him was a little different than it is today:  he was placed in chains, and kept in a dark room with little light or fresh air.
He should have been released within a year, at most maybe two.  But because of some political turnover at the time, he was actually forgotten about for the next 12 years.  During that time, his wife begged and pleaded for his release.  Finally, it was granted, and after 12 years, this man was set free from his prison cell.  What happened next was incredible.
Standing in the light for the first time, he blinked cautiously and looked around him.  He took one, then two steps toward his wife, who stood before him in tears and joy, and then, he stopped.  Turning slowly, he walked back into the prison and down the stairs back into his cell, where he put his chains back on.  His wife, friends, and family were in absolute shock, and pleaded with him to enter into the freedom he had been granted.  Doctors finally decided that he had been in prison so long that his mind now knew nothing else.
Heartbreaking, isn't it??  What's even more heartbreaking is that I made it all up.  There really never was such a man...at least not one that I know of.  But what gets me is how often my life portrays that very image.  In Galatians, Paul writes, "...we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.  But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son...to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.  And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'  So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God." (4: 3-7)
Just like this man, I am incredibly guilty before my God.  Nothing within me is good enough to deserve His love, peace, and righteousness.  Just like this man, I am completely imprisoned, bound to myself, to these things that keep me from Him.  But there is hope.  Paul goes on to say that it is "for freedom that Christ has set us free." (5:1)
Free.  I am completely set free, from all of it:  my sin, myself, my false expectations, everything that drives me and yet never fully satisfies.  My freedom is found only in His life, death, and resurrection.
But, if I refuse to walk in it, I am just like a prisoner who picks back up his chains, refusing to walk in the freedom he has been granted.  I pray today, that if you truly are a child of God, you might live in the freedom for which He has set you free.