Many years ago, my husband and I were in Germany visiting my sister. One day, after admiring various animals at the Berlin Zoo, we found ourselves at the polar bear habitat. There were two or maybe three bears, but one clearly stood out. He was standing on a ledge looking out at us. While the other bears were roaming about, he just stayed on that ledge moving two feet forward, two feet back; two feet forward, two feet back, as if he were dancing for us.
The whole scene was equal parts sad and curious.
Why was he doing this?
He had all this space to wander and yet he confined himself to a space of maybe 10 ft by 10 ft. Finally, I found a sign that gave the answer. You see, he was an old circus bear. Though he had been at the zoo for many years, he was so used to his cage and his performance that he continued to limit himself to that same amount of space and those same movements. It was heartbreaking.
He was free and yet he remained caged. He was so used to being confined that didn’t realize his cage, his shackles were gone.
I wonder if many of us live this way as Christians. We have lived so much of our lives shackled by the guilt of sin, by the lies of the world, by the unreasonable expectations put upon us by society, by other Christians and by ourselves that we don’t realize we are free.
I must admit, this word “free” made me cringe for many years of my Christian life. When I was a youth pastor, one of my volunteers loved to quote this verse from Galatians:
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1 NIV).
He was all about proclaiming the freedom that comes from Christ…. I wasn’t so sure. After all, what would these teenagers do, think, say if they thought they were free? Would it not be a recipe for disaster?!
To me the idea of freedom was one of boundary-less licentiousness. It was permission to do as you pleased no matter what the impact. Going back to our polar bear analogy, freedom would be letting those bears go anywhere they wanted in the zoo, thus becoming incredibly dangerous to all of the people and other animals in their path.
But here’s the thing, while those polar bears had freedom, they had freedom with boundaries.
There was a deep moat all around the habitat and then a very high wall on the other side. There were barriers keeping everyone in that situation safe, while giving everyone in that situation freedom.
Looking back, I spent so many years of my Christian life afraid of leaving my own “10×10 square,” afraid of experiencing the freedom Paul talks about in Galatians, because I was fearful that the boundaries might not be clear enough and the barriers might not be strong enough. I lived this life of legalistic perfectionism because I didn’t know there was another way.
I thought that by limiting myself to “what I was sure was ok, biblical, and holy” I would keep myself from sin.
But what I didn’t realize, was that in doing so, I was missing out on so much of what God wanted for me. He wanted joy; He wanted laughter; He wanted vulnerability and the freedom to be honest with God about my feelings and experiences.
I was living in a box of my own making, not realizing I had this beautiful habitat with new wonders to explore.
And that really is the heart of what Paul is talking about in Galatians 5. The main reason Paul wrote this letter to the church at Galatia was to refute certain Jews, known as “Judaizers” who were teaching that Gentiles needed to adhere to all the Jewish laws and customs in order to be saved. If there were a thesis statement to the letter as a whole I believe it would be found in Galatians 2:
“We, who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ…because by observing the law no one will be justified.” (Galatians 2:15-16 NIV)
As I was reading this whole letter again, making sure my theology was on target I felt struck to the core reading Paul’s frank exhortation in Chapter 3:
“Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort” (Galatians 3:3 NIV).
You see, I was a “Gentile” when I came to know Jesus. I was not a born and raised “Christian” who finally had my own personal moment of coming to make “my family’s faith my own”. It was clearly an act of the Holy Spirit pursuing me and placing me in a position to finally hear what Jesus had done for me.
It was the Spirit that began to work in me.
But soon after the joy and freedom that came from that moment of miraculous conversion wore off, I fell quickly into the trap of the law. I was the girl who would do a “Fruits of the Spirit check” with great frequency. How was I stacking up?
Love? Solid B.
Peace? On the outside, right? You can’t possibly suggest it’s possible to be at peace on the inside!
Patience? Uh-oh, that’s a solid D….
I would go on and on grading myself and then digging deep to try and do better on my own strength. I would say I was praying about it, asking GOD to give me those fruits, but then the striving. So much striving!!
Into this context, lived out and perfected over many years, the power of Galatians 5:1 finally hit me. Christ didn’t free me from the power of sin so I could live in fear of sin, so I could live controlled by the endless task of avoiding sin. He freed me from the power of sin so I could be FREE!!
I no longer need to be so burdened by the yoke of slavery to perfectionism, to the subtle belief that I need to be good enough, knowledgeable enough, obedient enough to stay free. I AM free.
I am free because that’s how God did it.
When Jesus died on the cross, He broke the shackles of sin and death and He broke the power of the law as the way to salvation.
I am free because that’s what God desires for me.
He desires to see me fully alive, warts and all, coming in repentance so that He can again and again cast my sins as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).
How about you?
Have you experienced freedom for the sake of freedom?
Do you ever find yourself living in imaginary shackles?
Do you ever stand in your own dungeon not realizing that the door is open and you can leave at any time?
It is for freedom you have been set free. After years of dancing; years of two steps forward, two steps back, it may be scary. It will definitely feel uncomfortable. You may find yourself retreating from time to time to the safety of that rhythm, but I am here to tell you, there is an amazing world to explore beyond that cliff that you were set free to live into. Let’s go explore it together!