Freedom is a universally sought-after commodity. Freedom to live and do as one pleases is high on the list of must haves. From the time we arrive on the scene as babes we look to our caregivers to have our needs met. We embrace them for what they provide and then seek to do what we want, when we want, if we want. That is one notion of freedom. What if freedom is linked to our capacity to operate in truth? Could it be that we can be bound and free at the same time?

People have invaded countries, fled continents, marched, protested, picketed, boycotted and lost their lives in the quest for freedom. The freedom to choose goes back to the beginning of time. People have even rallied for all sorts of causes in the name of freedom.

Have you ever been engaged in an activity in the name of freedom only to realize later that your choice was one that resulted in confinement? Ever prayed to get something then when it arrived on your doorstep you knew that it was not the outcome you desired?

Informed Choices

Indeed, I have made those types of choices. As an impressionable teenager trying to make sense of my chaotic world I chose to smoke tobacco cigarettes. I had not seen my parents smoke. They had spoken against it.

I remember the first puff was an unpleasant experience. My chest hurt and I was nauseated. Yet, I was enabled to choose something that was harmful for me and push past the discomfort. I exercised my freedom.

Later, as I examined my behavior I made a decision to stop smoking. By that time I was a young woman, educated about the dangers of smoking and empowered to make a better choice, I quit “cold turkey”. I was more emotionally mature and self-aware. What proved to be the key to my making a healthy lifestyle choice about smoking was receiving the truth about smoking, some ten years after I made my initial decision.

While those initial reactions to taking my first puff were devastating, my mind was not open to the truth of smoking being harmful to me, and others around me. Gradually, I accepted the truth. I had possessed the freedom to access the truth and its associated benefits of health I chose to confine myself to possible negative outcomes in the name of choice. Bondage and freedom.

Freedom to Choose

I had the freedom to choose. I could have chosen liberty or bondage. The truth was there to set me free. Since I exercised my choice to look at the truth I have been freed of the physical bondage of smoking tobacco.

As of 2006 the following information appears on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website:

“Through the years, the Clearinghouse and its successor organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health, have been responsible for 29 reports on the health consequences of smoking.”

Despite a health warning on the package in 1969 millions of individuals continued to smoke. While some stopped smoking others started. In 2009 new legislation was enacted by President Barack Obama made even stronger connections to ill health and cigarette smoking.

Today, around the world roughly five million deaths are tobacco related. Yet people are still smoking. They exercise the freedom to smoke.

You may be a smoker or someone that you know or love may be a smoker. With all of the available information about the dangers of smoking we all have a choice. We have the freedom to make choices about how we behave. The choices we make impact our physical and spiritual life.

We can seek the truth or we can make choices without regard for the truth. We can make choices now and become enlightened later. As long as there is time to become enlightened later.

The Freedom of Truth

In what areas of your life have you found freedom? What truth have you used to guide your life?  Where did you discover that truth? When did you come to know it was the truth? Is there more truth that you can embrace? How will you know if there is something you are missing that is hiding in plain sight?

In the book of John we are told that God’s word is truth and that the truth will cause us to be free. Further we are told of the way of the truth.

Our spiritual health is far more permanent than our physical health. Renew your mind. Be free indeed!  Is there truth that you need to accept? Examine yourself, what are you missing? Where there is fear there is likely bondage, see what the truth of the word reveals about your fears. You are empowered to exercise your choice in the truth that is freedom indeed.

Take Inventory and Take Action!

Love,

Deborah

“Lighting the path to loving your neighbor as yourself.”