True freedom
Part 7: I can never have it, yet I have it, until I have it
There are, no doubt, other elements to incorporate with the three-fold awareness.
No-one is born with this awareness; no-one comes to this awareness without having first, to some degree, going astray from the way they now come to consider to be the way of fullness of life. So, we become aware that we are where we are; we are not complete, or free, and certainly not perfect. We are damaged and hurt, and we have inflicted the same on others. Yet, we don’t have to wait until we get to the destination we desire before we can at last say, “Now I am free!”. We can be free as we understand the point we have reached, and though we are far from home, we are complete in our acceptance of the truth of our situation and in our desire to reach the destination we now see is right. We are not fully free because of the powerful forces in society which shape our lives and limit our actions, but we are free in the inner harmony we can find, and work towards, between our desires, actions and conscience. So, our true freedom is not spoiled by our past failures, the impositions of society around us, or our distance from our final destination which is full attainment of our goal.
It is now, perhaps, that we see most strongly the contrast between the freedom the believer knows and that known by the atheist – even if the atheist’s freedom only existed in theory rather than practice. For we have become aware of the gap between the all-fulfilling vision that the believer has in God and their failure to live up to it, while also clarifying just what the life of faith is: to work towards the goal that has caught your heart and won you to faith.
Yet the person without God, no matter how inspiring their atheistic vision, is always falling short of it. In our human weakness, in practice, we will console ourselves by aiming lower, accepting the compromises of life, and settling for less. Yet the believer, receiving God’s gifts of grace, by which he treats us as righteous, even though we are not, enjoys the complete liberation of receiving the fullness of God’s love. So, the ultimate – true – freedom that the believer enjoys, as well as the entirely human harmony of desires, actions and conscience, is the freedom to dwell in the presence of God. There is such disharmony between the ways of humanity and the ways of God, that there could never be freedom from tension and loss and failure. So, in the same way we recognised that true freedom does not exist if there is disharmony between the elements of desires, actions and conscience, so we see that – when it is all up to us – there will never be true freedom because there will always be disharmony between us and God. However, when God, in his grace, grants us the gift of admission to his presence – a presence we do not deserve – then we attain true freedom, not only in relation to ourselves, but also in relation to God. True freedom exists when we have achieved harmony between our desires, actions and conscience, and when we have allied our conscience to the will of God, and when we dwell in his presence.
It would be lovely to end there, but I cannot, and so I depend on paradox and on grace. I will probably never attain complete harmony between my desires, actions and conscience, but God will take the giving of my heart to this goal as token, and treat me as though I have. I will probably never manage to fully love what God loves, but he knows that I love him, and he has said that this is enough. I treat God as someone to visit rather than to dwell with, but he is always open to me; he calls me, and I am always free to come to him. I know what to do – work for that three-fold harmony, and in that effort, and in his grace, I have true freedom.
Spiritual Devotion 