The Cost of Freedom - Part 2

Growing up, I never really liked fairs and carnivals - funnel cakes and clowns just weren’t my thing. As an adult, I didn't like them for the same reasons but also for the fact that you had to have those “dreaded tickets” to do most anything - tickets, tickets, always having to buy more tickets.

Disney was more my style. Someone paid at the gate and then it was “all you wanted for as long as you wanted.” There was no money or tickets to have to worry about at all. You just get to enjoy all the park has to offer. That is, until you got hungry or thirsty. $$$

I think that our lives as believers are somewhat like this. Someone else has paid for us to have the opportunity to be admitted to the Christian life and now we are free to go and do what we want to do - with some boundaries, of course. But yet, we get physically and spiritually hungry/thirsty and there is a cost associated with that. At Disney it takes money to satisfy our physical hunger/thirst. To truly feed our spiritual hunger/thirst our cost is intentionally seeking God. As we pursue Him and nourish that relationship, he nourishes us.

We all know what it is like to be “hangry” - irritable and of no good to anyone until we get fed. We can be like this spiritually as well when we allow ourselves to feel distant from God by not intentionally spending time with Him and looking elsewhere to fill that void. God created us to be relational with Him and when we don’t do this, it ultimately results in us either “running on fumes” or trying to refuel with something that our “gas tanks” were not designed for.

Our lives will reflect the quality of those choices. This passage says it well:

Colossians 2:6-8 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ.

When we are “spiritually hangry” there are many options available for us to try to quench that hunger/thirst - entertainment, achievement, possessions etc… These things are not necessarily bad but can become liabilities for us if we are trying to use them to fill that spiritual void. They may satisfy for awhile but they all have diminishing returns and will ultimately leave us unfulfilled and empty. You don’t have to look very far to see plenty of examples of that.

As the verse above says, don’t be taken by the “hollow and deceptive philosophies of the world” but rather pursue a growing relationship with our Creator and Savior. Entertainment, achievement and possessions can all be part of our lives but are meant to be pursued in a healthy balance with an intentional and growing relationship with God. He knows what our priorities are and those priorities will be revealed by what we passionately choose to pursue.

One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes is: “If I find in myself desires for which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

As Christians, we are ultimately made for another world. But, we are in this world now and God has a great plan for our lives. Are we “running on fumes” or full of His love and grace to pursue His plans for us?

Hunger and thirst for Him,

Big E