A Free Slave

Can one be free and be a slave at the same time? Intuitively, you want to answer no. I want to answer no, too, but I'm learning that perhaps, as a Christian, they go hand in hand.

What does it mean to be a slave? It is something along the lines of surrendering your own will, desires, and intentions to another. And, as Christians, isn't that what we're called to do? We're told to die to ourselves, to surrender our wills to God's, to lay down those things that hold us back or drive us away from God. We're asked to willingly become slaves of our Creator.

And somehow, paradoxically, in the very same moment that we become enslaved, we are simultaneously freed. How can this be? We give up our own will only to be given something that is full, and open, and free, and wonderful. We are given rules and the Law, but these do not bind us into a tight, confined space. These rules are not meant to oppress. We are handed rules from a loving Father, just as our earthly fathers give us when we're young, so that we can learn and grow. And when we can be trusted with these rules, we are allowed more freedom. Just as parents trust children to be alone in the house, stay out later, and travel farther as they prove trust, so God gives us more freedom as we prove our trustworthiness with what has been given us.

It is a circle, it seems. You must be a slave to be free. You must be trusted with little before you can be trusted with much. How glorious and complex our God is, and I am overjoyed to be His free slave and so grateful to be trusted.