Lectio
“But as long as you pretend to live in pure autonomy, as your own master, without even a god to rule you, you will inevitably live as the servant of another man or as the alienated member of an organization. Paradoxically it is the acceptance of God that makes you free and delivers you from human tyranny, for when you serve Him you are no longer permitted to alienate your spirit in human servitude. God did not invite the Children of Israel to leave the slavery of Egypt: He commanded them to do so.”
— Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
Meditatio
We are under the delusion that our lives are our own. That we were born for ourselves, that we live for ourselves, and that our death will close the door on ourselves. We imagine that life, our circumstances, and our relationships exist somehow to serve us. Even within Christianity, this is the delusion of the so-called prosperity gospel — the idea that if we worship properly, that God will bless us with all of the gifts we deserve. Even our worship is self-serving, if we are honest with ourselves. We have made ourselves at home in our captivity.
We are enslaved by our desires, by our fears, and by our expectations. And the sad part is that we may not even know it — I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate (Romans 7:15). It is as if we are wandering in a haze, a slumber, dead in our trespasses, unable to see past what the false self demands of us. And we are powerless to free ourselves, to awaken ourselves — and the free, the awakened, are powerless to do so as well, although their prayers are neither meaningless nor unheard.
Every impulse toward freedom, every moment of clarity, every dissatisfaction with our captivity — these are not our own achievements. They are grace already at work in us, drawing us toward a liberation we could not have imagined on our own. Only grace can free us from the bondage of self.
Sometimes grace comes in the form of love, as in God’s felt presence. Sometimes grace comes in the form of suffering, as in God’s felt absence. But grace always comes from God who is present both in love and in our suffering. Neither we, nor anyone else, has the power to manifest this grace for us no matter how hard we wish, will, or try. And grace, when it comes, does not invite us out. It commands us.
But even that command is not coercion. Like the Israelites, we are free to ignore, deny, or reject God’s will for us — his will for eternal union with his creation. We are free to choose the dubious comfort of servitude or the uncomfortable unknown of God’s mysterious promise. And this is not an easy choice to make because the false self brings with it many possessions. But the Lord is insistent.
We cannot follow the Lord while also keeping ourselves or keeping to ourselves, and many of us will walk away grieving, choosing possessiveness over freedom and self-centered isolation over relationship. And yet, even at our greatest distance, the Lord who is never distant beckons us to follow him into freedom — from self, from others, and from powers and principalities. The promise of freedom — clouded, luminous, beyond our comprehension — leads us through the wilderness and through the cross, and from the cross through resurrection to the Promised Land.
Oratio
From Myself
free me from myself
the self that hides
that pretends it’s real
and tells me lies
free me from myself
my counterfeit identity
who says I am
what I think of me
free me from myself
the source of fear
be like God without God
whispered in my ear
free me from myself
who I’m not meant to be
revealing the self
that only God can see
Contemplatio
What possessiveness does your false self bring with it that makes the Lord’s command so difficult to receive?
Related Scripture
“For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
— Galatians 5:1 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
For Further Reading: If you enjoyed this post, you may also like The Useless Hour: On Prayer, Surrender, and the Freedom of Doing Nothing With God, which turns the same paradox of freedom inside out — trading autonomy not for bondage but for the surrendered stillness of prayer, where control is finally given up rather than seized.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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