I was listening to the radio on my way to an appointment this morning and I heard something that was very thought provoking. I’m a talk radio junkie, and I was listening to a talk show host talk about Independence Day and freedom. He said,
Acting in freedom means nothing. If you don’t think like you’re free, you aren’t free.
I never thought about it that way. It reminded me an experiment that we did when I was in kindergarten that has somehow stuck with me all these years. Our teacher, Mrs. Olmstead, had some fleas in a shallow dish with a lid on it. They were jumping and hitting their heads on the lid. After a few hours, they weren’t jumping as much. The next morning, they weren’t jumping at all. She removed the lid, and none of the fleas jumped away.
What is freedom to you? Whether you think of religious freedom, political freedom, or anything else, just exercising your freedom in your actions is fraudulent freedom. Unless you learn to think like you’re free, you’re not really free. You’re like one of those fleas in that dish.
I am INCREDIBLY thankful for the freedoms I enjoy every day. Days like July 4th remind me how much I have to be grateful for in my life, and to thank those who have literally given their all for our freedom. I’m completely positive that I don’t completely appreciate freedom because I’ve never had to live without it. Unless you lose something like freedom, I don’t know that it’s possible to totally appreciate it. But I’m definitely thankful for it.
With that in mind, I don’t just want to act free. When we only act free, freedom gets abused. When we learn to think like we’re free and act in that way of thinking, then we can truly experience freedom.
Take a few minutes to stop and think about your freedom. Think about what it means. Imagine yourself in captivity. What if you had to give up the freedom you enjoy? Pause to be thankful for your freedom today, and start to transform your mind to think like you’re free.
