pictures of freedom

i wanted to write down a picture i had, about freedom.

i was lying in bed on saturday night, thinking about Easter Sunday. the choir was going to sing, and i was playing bass, and i wondered what it would take for the girls in the choir to really feel free. isn't that what Easter is about, anyway? freedom?

but then i started dreaming or daydreaming or something.

i was in a huge building. i knew all of the corridors, all of the rooms, i knew where everything went and where everything lived. this was my life. my whole life. and this was my prison.

and then, suddenly, one day, i wasn't there any more. i was outside. somebody had opened the door and let me out. and outside it was a beautiful sunny day, and as far as i could see there was grass and plains. so beautiful. then i realised i couldn't go back inside, because the door was locked. i was stuck, in freedom. the walls of the building i knew so well were very high - no chance of me climbing back in, and the door was tough and strong, no chance of me breaking it down. i was outside, and that was that. i had been freed, and suddenly freedom was scary.

so i started building a fence in my new freedom, a little fence to make me feel safer. i still wanted to be in control of my freedom, and wanted boundaries that would make me feel comfortable. my fences were very nice.

but i'd put myself back in a prison, this time of my own making. i'd also refused God's offer of true freedom, and made pointless the suffering He went through on the Cross.

then God showed me what true freedom was, how it felt, and why He wanted me to be free. suddenly i was running across the plains, like wild horses run - for the sheer joy of it! breathing, living, excited, ALIVE. and all for the sheer joy of it! i realised freedom wasn't something to be scared of, it was something to relish, to enjoy, to live in, to breathe in and out in, to just BE in. and i loved the running, the feeling of breathlessness that comes with the sheer exuberance of living and breathing and being alive.

so wonderful!

after thinking about this most of the night, i started thinking how it related to praise, and why we praise God. so many songs that we sing say something along the lines of "we praise You for what You have done" but i never really dwell on what it is that He has done. so what has God done? He has set us free, given us the opportunity to really be free, to run and breathe and live and be really truly alive. we praise God first and foremost because He is worth it. we praise His name, and we give thanks because He has set us free. i'm so grateful that here there is no law against praising God, that i'm allowed to praise in freedom from the state.

praise God, i'm free!