For freedom

James Cathcart July 03, 2025 0 0

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Galatians 5: 1 (NIVUK)

1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

It is for freedom that we have been set free.

Not for free-fall

or free-form 

or free-wheeling.

We have not been set free to be pushed off a precipitous drop into free-fall.

We have not been set free to sag into a shapeless, untethered free-form existence.

We have not been set free to freewheel, arbitrarily veering this way and that.

For free-fall is a world without limits or resistance. A freedom to hurtle ever downwards, with nothing to hold on to.

For free-form is a world without pattern and with no web of consequence and meaning. If free-fall is going nowhere fast, free-form is going nowhere slowly. 

And free-wheeling is a poor freedom, erratic and dangerous, trapping us in the lurch from here to there.

It is not for free fall that we have been set free — left to our own devices, helpless, sinking, victims of fate.

It is not for free form what we have been set free — a baggy, vague life where the best we can hope for is not to hurt others and find a little happiness.

It is not for freewheeling that we have been set free — a reckless, selfcentred, ultimately meaningless trajectory wherever the engine takes us.

It is for freedom.

A freedom that can meet limits and resistance on its own terms with imagination and grit.

A freedom that can choose to follow patterns and flexibly adapt.

A freedom with purpose, that is heading somewhere and takes others with it on the journey.

A freedom that wants — not just to minimise harm and maximise happiness —  but to invite all to join in, beloved and free.

Prayer:

Remind us Lord

you have not freed us only for us to plummet into a free-fall life

that you have not freed us only for us to drift into a free-form life

that you have not freed us only for us to career into a free-wheeling life.

Remind us that you have freed us for freedom.

A freedom that is free to stand firm

a freedom that is free to take shape

a freedom that is free to find and follow direction

a freedom that is free to know you

to love you.

Amen.