FREEDOM <??>   

By Reverend Liz Petipren  

We call America the land of the free, and this is true in a political sense. But there is more to freedom than the opportunity to vote.  

Millions of people are slaves to their Environment, slaves to their troubles and slaves to what they feel are unhappy situations in their lives. How many times have you heard someone say, “I wish I could get away from it all” Such words could only come from one who feels he or she is in bondage, someone who wants to be free but feels escape is impossible.  

There is one last tyrant that must be overthrown before we can be free. The name of this tyrant is spiritual ignorance. Jesus put it this way: “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free” (John 8: 32).  

If we are in bondage to an undesirable job, other people’s opinions, physical challenges, inharmonious human relationships, or oppressive debts, it is only because we think we are powerless as human beings.  

The real cause of our bondage is our limited belief in who we are and what we can accomplish when we let the power of Spirit flow through us. In other words, our task master and tyrant is our own spiritual revival. We have inadvertently come to worship many false gods.   

No matter what happens to us or around us, we must respond in the consciousness that there is an invisible power and presence that is working with us and for us, and that this power is capable of bringing about a right and happy solution.  

When unexpected trouble suddenly comes into our lives, seemingly through no fault of our own, the first feeling is many times one of panic or human fear. But it is right then and there that we must remember the Truth. We are not alone God is greater than any challenge and God can and will work with us in the midst of it to bring about a perfect solution.  

Consider the story of Joseph, whose brothers tricked him and sold him into slavery. Through Joseph’s faith in a loving God, this disastrous circumstance became a stepping-stone to his climb to second in power to the Pharaoh of  Egypt. Joseph was able to say to his brothers: “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20).  

Start your own spiritual revival today. Say to yourself, “No matter how hard or unyielding the circumstance for my life might seem, I resolve this day, this moment, to trust completely that a power infinitely greater than the seeming power of these circumstances is working to bring me to a place of greater happiness and fulfillment than I have ever known or imagined. I am grateful! I am free! I am free!