My daughter shared her testimony of how God has changed her life with the Youth Group last night. As a Mom, I can't even begin to tell you what a wonderful daughter she is and how proud I am of her. Even more so, how exciting it is to see how God has been working in her life.One of the points she made was how when she was young, she thought that being a Christian was like being in a prison and how she thought she was missing out on life because of it, only to discover that her choice to rebel and live life her own way was the real prison.
In my devotions this morning was a story about a man named Eugene Cussons who rescues chimpanzees who were orphaned by those in the business of bush-meat trade and taken from the wild only to be confined to live in spaces smaller than a prison cell. When he would first come to get them, he would often find them hostile and untrusting, and have to put them in an even smaller crate for transport, so they would put up quite a fight. They didn't know that he was going to take them back to "Chimp Eden" and give them a much better life.
On a much grander scale (in the words of Julie Ackerman); God's offer to liberate us from the slavery of sin is often met with resistance. When He rescued the children of Israel from Egypt, God took them through difficult places that caused them to doubt His good intentions.
On our journey of faith, there are times when the "feedom" of sin that we left behind is more appealing than the restrictions of faith that lie ahead. We must trust the protective boundaries found in God's Word as the only way to get to the place of ultimate freedom.
Obedience to God is the key to freedom.
