The day we gained Independence from God

There is nothing like freedom. There is nothing like standing on your own two feet, thrusting the crutches of dependency outside your window. There is nothing like marching out of your childhood home and stepping into the world as your heart and mind clumsily gather the rumored thought of ‘adulthood.’ Freedom. Treading beyond the borders of confinement, the crux of our existence is granted liberty to copiously vent its inner existence to the grand audience: the world. Nyasaland found her freedom. Nyasaland found her home at last. Her fire glittered as her flames (Ma-lawi) roared across the crystal lining of her Calendar lake (365 miles long, 52 miles width). The journey has been long and the journey continues. Adversity, resilience and budding revolution has painted the mosaic of her existence. Her people celebrated their “ufulu” (freedom). Her people celebrated their “mtundu” (culture). Her people celebrated “her.”

We often characterize freedom as the power to be; the power to truly and authentically radiate the depths of our being. Each day we wake up. Each day we spring into our daily musings, balancing the old age tension that yells “just get by” and “I was made for so much more.” Our needful wanting to “be” finds itself bargaining with society, family and even the church, questioning forms and fads that promise liberation yet leave us with a greater sense of captivity. Though it appears that our colonial masters have less of an official grip on us, our independence seems nothing more than a chronic mirage dangling before our eyes. I am not talking about Malawi. I am not talking about Africa. I am not even talking about the distant nations across the seas. No. I am talking about you. I am talking about me.

“From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”- God

More than 53 years ago, we gained independence from God. More than 53 years ago, we set ourselves in bondage. When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He granted them freedom; freedom to eat of His provision; freedom to live in His shelter; freedom to live in Him. Yet the enemy, being in captivity himself, saw it fit to drift their eyes away from the Creator. He fed them the old age lie. He fed them a freedom from the very courts of hell. He fed them a freedom that nullified God. In our pursuit to live “our” life (besides, it is “our prerogative”) we have willingly set aside our freedom and chained our being to captivity. Our freedom to live outside the confines of God have trickled in shackles that suffocate our very existence. Though the YOLO mantra (You Only Live Once) echoes louder each day, we seldom stop in our tracks as we beckon the tousling question: am I really free?

The holy oxymoron that crushes the wisdom of this age finds its spell binding truth in this: our captivity to Christ sets forth the greatest freedom known to mankind. In God we can truly be. In God we can truly express the human experience as the divine meets the natural culminating in sovereign liberty which our hearts yearn for. His confines have been for our good. His confines have been for our protection. His confines have obstructed all that will try to scrape at our relationship with Him. He (Jesus Christ) came to restore this liberty. He came to restore our dependence to Him again. He came to set the captives free.

Are you walking in His freedom or is your “ufulu” from another?

At His Feet…