Freedom

Ever since I was a small child, I have heard about what a blessing it is to live in a free country, where you can do and be almost anything you want to do and be. But for a long time those were just words – I had always lived in America, and I didn’t appreciate how amazing being an American really is. I took my awesome birthright for granted.
Then came the day that shook our nation. What was once thought to be unthinkable and impossible actually unfolded suddenly before our unprepared eyes. Foreign enemies attacked us on our own soil and killed thousands of our fellow countrymen. One day we were at peace and the next we were at war. In the years since September 11, 2001, events have unfolded that people of my generation had yet to see up close – namely, war and sacrifice. Peace and safety was no longer a foregone conclusion in our biggest and greatest cities; the ability to go here and there without fear of sudden and violent attack was no longer the same. Young men of my very own age and generation – some of whom I knew personally – were going off to war to fight for America, something I myself might have done had I been physically able. These tumultuous times have made all of us think about and appreciate what America stands for, and have, like nothing else before now, stirred deep feelings of patriotism.
But freedom is not only an American quality. It is a universal ideal. We saw that when the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, whom we helped to liberate, voted for the first time in free and fair elections without fear that a tyrant would force them to cast a particular vote or face the consequences. We all saw it only recently when the people of Iran rose up against their dictators to demand the simple freedom of a fair and democratic election, even at the risk of their own lives. It is not only we Americans who have known and fought for freedom; it is a global struggle, and every true American identifies and stands with anyone in the world who seeks freedom – whether it be in the Middle East, or Asia, or former Soviet Bloc nations, or Nazi-threatened Europe.
It is hard to appreciate something when you have never experienced its opposite. We have always enjoyed the right to choose our own religion, to speak out and even criticize our authorities, to live and work wherever we please, to select our leaders, to travel without fear of restriction, to be at ease from persecution on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, or belief. But recent events have brought this into focus better than it has been in some time. We have seen how so many in our world do not get to taste even the smallest of these liberties – and much less in the midst of as much prosperity as we in America, despite the current economic downturn, experience all of them every single day.
But on the birthday of our nation, we need to be reminded of an even greater truth – that our freedoms, though safeguarded through the years by noble leaders and even nobler if far less famous soldiers, are not bestowed on us by ourselves or any other human being. Freedom is not self-perpetuating; it is not a guarantee. Freedom comes from God, and the fact that America has been a beacon of liberty to all the world for now 233 years is a testimony to that God and to the fact that for many of those years Americans have walked in God’s ways. America was founded on the truth that true freedom – spiritual freedom – comes only by faith in Jesus Christ, who by His own blood made a way for us to be free from sin and its consequences forever. America’s founders and many of her greatest men have known this and realized that only those who walk in spiritual freedom – which is not the right to do as we please but the empowerment to do as we ought – are able to govern themselves in political freedom.
Today we have left that foundation, and we do so at our own peril. We as a nation no longer walk in God’s ways. We have gotten lazy, ignorant, and immoral. We put our trust in man to fulfill our desires and needs, and power-hungry leaders have taken advantage of this in order to make government more and more of an all-consuming idol which threatens more freedoms each day. We have drifted, and we have for the most part been oblivious and uncaring in the midst of our drift away from what once made us great and truly free.
The Fourth of July is a day to mark how many years America has been a nation and to give thanks for freedom. But it is not a day to smugly reassure ourselves in the false belief that freedom and liberty will always be there, and that America will always be prosperous, and that America will always and forever come out on top. These things are not eternal – they are only guaranteed by our own vigilance and utmost trust in Almighty God. Independence Day should be a wake-up call to us, for we have much to do in order to restore and maintain our republic.
The very first thing we must do is return to the God of our fathers. Second Chronicles 7:14 assures that “If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways – then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land.” We who name the name of Christ must get on our knees and do business with God, and then rise to seek from His hand the revival that our nation so desperately needs. As we do so, we must also strive to make a godly difference in every area of society – not just in politics, but also in our workplace, in education, in the arts, in the marketplace of ideas, and any other place in which our hand finds something to do. We must do it with our might and to the glory of God. Only then, by God’s grace and strength, will we be living as our Christian forefathers did, and then we will be on our way to re-making America into the great nation it once was.
But if we neglect to do these things, we can be sure that our cherished freedom will continue to be eroded. We can expect that God will withdraw His hand from our society and even judge us for our sin – we would have reason to fear more unrest, upheaval, calamity, and uncertainty. A nation cannot long prosper that has left its God.
We thank God for another free July 4th – but how many more free birthdays does America have? They will not keep coming on their own. As one of our founding fathers once said, the only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. May we never be guilty of inaction in freedom’s cause.