That’s probably a terrible way to start a blog on the weekend that we celebrate our independence as a nation.  But. It’s. True.  Freedom is only without problems when the hearts of the free are willingly bound to Another in love.  If we have proved anything as humans over the past several thousand years, it is that when we are free to do whatever we want, we make a mess of things.  We are like toddlers in a kitchen stocked with eggs, flour and syrup…without supervision.  It makes for a funny Facebook photo but it’s really difficult to clean up.  The messes we have made outside the kitchen are even worse.  Just think of what has been done in the name of freedom.  Much of it should make us ashamed.  Adam and Eve had real freedom and their self-will put the rest of us under the law of sin and death.  Would we have done any better?  Because God is gracious, we still have freedom.  We are free to choose Him, free to accept forgiveness, free to receive a Kingdom of love and free to walk in the ways He designed from before time began.  Living in that kind of freedom is more liberating than we can imagine.  It’s the freedom of a bird to fly, and fish to swim, and a kangaroo to jump.  The freedom to become what we were designed to be is the freedom we are really after.  Every other response to freedom ends up messy.  Join us this weekend as we learn how to pray for one another with true freedom in mind.