Free and Responsible: Why Freedom Without This Just Makes a Mess

Free Isn't Actually Free

We love the word free. Free breakfast, free wifi, complimentary tea and coffee. Except none of it's actually free. Somebody bought it. Somebody set it up. Somebody's washing up right now while you enjoy your free breakfast.

That's a picture of the gospel too. Galatians 5:1 says it was for freedom that Christ set us free. Freedom cost Him everything. The cross is the receipt.

So we're free. But here's the question nobody asks straight after that verse. If He paid for the freedom, who's responsible for what we do with it?

When Freedom and Responsibility Come Apart

Freedom without responsibility looks like this: I do what I want, and somebody else deals with what's left. The mess doesn't disappear, it gets billed to someone else. Galatians 5:13 calls this out directly, don't use your freedom as a cover, serve one another in love.

Responsibility without freedom looks holy, which is exactly why it's harder to catch. Too much on my plate, if I don't do it nobody will, I'm earning my worth, no joy anywhere in it. That's not devotion. That's religion with a to-do list.

The Poinciana Tree

We had a house rule when our kids were young: make as much mess as you like, as long as you clean it up. One afternoon our son Judah and his cousin discovered that throwing a footy into our poinciana tree brings down a rain of seed pods. By evening the backyard was carpeted.

They weren't thrilled when clean-up time came. But here's the part that mattered: I didn't do it for them, and I didn't leave them stranded either. I got the bins. I didn't pick up a single pod.

The next week, the cousin wanted to do it all again. Judah said no. Nobody banned him. He'd carried the cost of his own fun once, and made a different call. Free, and responsible, in the same afternoon.

So What Is Freedom, Really?

Here's the definition: freedom is I get to tell myself what to do, and I do it. On a good day. Because some days I don't. I know what I should say and I say the other thing.

The One Person You Actually Control

If that's true of me, the one person on earth I've got jurisdiction over, what makes me think I can control anyone else? My kids, my staff, how someone responds to me, how anything turns out?

I control me. On a good day. That's the whole list.

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