My wife recently said something so noteworthy about the times we live in: “He [meaning God] gave us freedom so we could spread freedom.” I agree with that.
When entrusted with something valuable, our role is to be a good steward. We could take freedom for granted and be no more than a miser, hiding in a dark room, talking to our precious like Gollum in his cave. Or we can be a steward, an investor, a person who believes that to whom much is given, much is expected.
Freedom is one of the greatest gifts ever given and something of which many nations and peoples only dream. Freedom to speak, to move about, to gather, to worship, to vote, to be defended. Actual freedom is more than just a notion, it is a right, a measure of life.
Next to the life-changing freedom I have in Jesus Christ, there is no greater freedom than that of an American citizen. But the freedoms you and I have are under attack in a major way. There are those who believe their role is not to serve the greater good but to show the masses why their version of good is greater.
But when you always err on the side of freedom and personal liberty, it’s hard to go wrong. There is no substitute for the freedoms we know as Americans. We don’t want some cheap imitation of freedom. We want nothing less than to be free to succeed in life, knowing that what we build will not be redistributed liberally to others or that what we hold as self-evident is tarnished by the waves of cultural populists.
In the book of Nehemiah, we’re told the story of rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls, which offered safety and sanctuary in those times. Distraught that the wall was in ruins, Nehemiah petitions the Persian king, for whom he worked, to allow him to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall. It was no small thing. The Jewish people were beaten down, with no real leadership, but the rebuilding began.
First, there was ridicule. But Nehemiah 4:6 tells us that “the people had a mind to work,” so the ridicule was ignored. Then came full opposition. So Nehemiah encouraged the people to pray, which they did, but he also put armed men to guard the wall while the rebuilding continued. “God will fight for us,” Nehemiah told the people, but he never told them to put down their swords, or to stop rebuilding the wall. He encouraged the people not to lose heart because of their opponents, saying: “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your kin, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.” The wall was rebuilt in record time.
Culturally speaking, America is in a similar place right now. As for cultural walls that provide safety and sanctuary, America is at an inflection point. Like Maximus in the movie “Gladiator” says, “The time for half measures and talk is over.”
In December 1776, Thomas Paine wrote “The Crisis,” writing of the need for good men to rise up, ensuring that future generations would not only have freedom but enjoy it, with the freedom to spread freedom:
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
In essence, Paine was saying that freedom is priceless, but too many sunshine patriots would choose to let freedom slip away rather than take a hard stand on the wall.
"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks,” Samuel Adams once said. “It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men."
I will speak, and so should you. I will assess the issues of the day and measure their outcomes against the ideal of freedom, and so should you. I will vote, I will act, I will assemble, I will worship … and so should you.
It is in the “doing” of freedom that we spread freedom.
There’s a poem from an anonymous author that reflects on a life well lived in the service of freedom. One stanza describes the sense attained in a final, non-regretful look back on being a poor steward of freedom:
I stood upon the wall, I stood my post.A servant to the cause and a foe to the host.Lie down and feel the rest, a rest well earned.They called and I went, the world yet turns.
Freedom is not free. It requires time and treasure and toil. He gave us freedom so that we could spread freedom.
So we best be taking up that spot … up there, standing on the wall.
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