Are you Free?

Are you Free?

Ahhhhh, my last Friday of Daylight savings time.  That arbitrary designation of the measurement of the passing of the sun. That government ruling that is slowly turning us into a nation of midnight loving zombies.  I firmly believe there are thousands of questions that you will never hear in heaven, and one of them is “what time is it?” Thank. You. God. Another will probably be “what’s he do for a living?”

We put lots of judgments on things and people every day. We tend to judge worth by money, looks, achievement, you name it. Osoela McCarty was a black woman in Hattisburg, MS, who, most of her life, did laundry for other people (for 78 years). You can imagine that outside of her family and customers, no one knew who she was or cared. Late in her life, she donated $150,000 to USM to, in her words, send someone’s kids to college. Instantly, she was in every newspaper, TV show, you name it for the achievement of saving this money and then selflessly giving it to an institution that had never recognized or affirmed her in any way.

Why did we respond to her gift in this way? I believe that deep down we are amazed at the kind of selflessness that says “I am free from your judgments. Free to live and love on my own terms, rather than believe the place the world wants to put me in”.

Men, we were born to live in a paradise where we walked with God and everything we needed to be a human came from Him. We walked away from that and ever since we have been comparing ourselves to others. I sincerely believe that most of the unmanly things we do are rooted in ourselves going to others to tell us who we are rather than God. It is the rare man indeed that is not captive to public opinion, or private opinion, for that matter but rather lives by God’s opinion. That, my friends, is freedom indeed. And for most of us, it doesn’t even compute. We don’t even question Daylight savings time, much less how we got like we are.

You want to do something courageous this weekend? Go spend some time alone with God and ask Him what He thinks about you. As a man. Then live from that, instead of the judgments the fallen voices of this world has put upon you.

Enjoy the journey, my friends

Alex