“I lead to and I lead away. I lead in and out of pasture. I ask one to enter and another to exit, one to do and another not to do. Intimacy with Me is your safeguard… My authority takes the liberty to exhibit Myself through you uniquely, distinctly, and specifically… Allowing for distinction in the way I will lead… breeds confidence in a very big God!”

Today I read a statement by Thomas Merton to the affect…”freedom means the end existence of any desire for evil.” I’m having a wonderful day musing over his statement. We make ‘moral’ choices during our journey as God leads us in and out, using every path we take to aid our discovery that the very desires He’s put in our hearts have no resemblance whatsoever to evil. We needed to make the choices we made…we needed the dark to help us understand what Light does–so even our “religious” experience was a gem on the path to discovery.

Hmmmm….still musing.
Jaque

We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We have distinctive life experiences. Circumstances affect us differently as individuals. God weaves the variables into what becomes our own voice and message. We tread the grain on the threshing floor of our lives and it becomes food for many. Not everyone is intended to glean from the harvest we yield, but some are. We make the offering and trust God to turn our words into manna for a few.

You mentioned the fear of freedom. Freedom frightens us all when we are not consciously aware of our union with Christ. I believe separated thinking is the birthplace of religion and religion’s profane use of legalism as a means of controlling others. This is the ‘fear of freedom’ in motion. Religion can’t give us full reign/freedom, because we might use it as an occasion to sin.

God wasn’t afraid of grace, so why are we? Again, to trust God is to trust that His use of freedom is a means to holiness. Outward sin or excess may occur temporarily but freedom will have its perfect work as we willingly shed the old skin and gladly walk in the newness of the spirit.

God’s way is higher than ours, no doubt!
sm