| I made a tough decision the other day. My desires were pulling me one way, my conscience the other. What made it tougher was that it was a watershed decision for me, a crossing of the Rubicon, an “I never can turn back” for me. By God’s grace I rose to the occasion and chose the right course. At once I felt an incredible sense of freedom, as though invisible chains had fallen off me.
Why is it that when we obey, we feel so free? Peter Kreeft suggests, “Since our highest freedom means freedom to be ourselves, we are most free when we are most obedient to God’s will, which expresses his idea of us. Thus freedom and obedience coincide. To obey God is to be free in the most radical sense: free from false being.”
At the moment of the most-free choice, it feels most like destiny, and at the moment when you feel destined to make a certain choice, it feels so free. You’ve experienced this when you chose to accept Christ as your Savior, or you may have sensed this when you said, “I do” at the altar. C. S. Lewis’s explanation of this principle is that it is all of us that chooses, with nothing left over.
When you obey God in wholehearted devotion, you step closer toward his idea of who he has determined you to be: the real you, the you he predetermined before the foundation of the world. This means that when you obey God, in the process you discover who you are. You know yourself better than before. You become the more excellent you, and therefore you step into your destiny. What freedom! And it can happen to you today as you obey.
Empower me to obey you today, Lord. It brings glory to you, and it brings me closer to my true self. |
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