INDEPENDENCE DAY

It is always a glorious feeling when we arrive at a point at which we can celebrate our independence. But history bears witness to the fact that independence is rarely if ever merely handed to us on a silver platter. It often is achieved only after a long and sometimes fierce battle. We must assert our desire and our right to be free. Today, while we can celebrate our political freedom, we face yet another battle for spiritual freedom. If we lose this battle, the victories of 1776 will have become meaningless. 

We assume that spiritual freedom is independence from God. When we are free to choose to align with opposite forces we feel we have asserted our independence. Unknown to us, while we might be free to align with opposite forces, it is those forces that ultimately will enslave us. Their now gentle embrace ultimately will become steel tentacles from which we can never be set free. Only God seeks to give us the gift of spiritual freedom--freedom to seek him or to turn away. Seeking after him, freely, yields eternal bliss. The alternative is an endless enslavement to everything that seeks to destroy our sense of peace, joy and freedom. It is against those forces that we must fight the battle for independence. Because while God stands patiently waiting with open arms, the dark, alternative forces pursue us with unmatched vigilance.