Freedom? Isn't it Way Over Rated?

I was reminded this morning of a Dostoyevsky quote from The Brothers Karazamov which says, “In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.”  Scary thought.  If a people do not have someone to worship, they long, seek, and even give up their freedom for one whom they can worship.  Dostoyevsky, who spent eight years in a Siberian prison camp, came back from that experience a different man.  During that time he found someone to worship besides government or in his case seeking to over throw one tyrant for another one.  He had experienced the ways of government and had found them lacking, which would be an understatement.  A people that do not worship, seek something in which to worship.  That is the way that God made us.  In one way we can be grateful that God has made man this way, I guess in all ways really.  Our present state of affairs in this country, in my opinion, has come about in part because of this great void.  A messianic figure has come along to take this void in peoples hearts and it would seem that a great deal of people have allowed it, maybe because they do not have another alternative.   Isn't part of it our responsibility?  Have we kept silent when we had the opportunity?  Or like me, maybe have talked politics when I should have been speaking of Jesus.  

Dostoyevsky also said, “So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and painfully as to find someone to worship.”  In one way this is very convicting.  It presupposes that I think that somewhere down the line we will loose our freedom of speech as believers.  I really do not think that will happen anytime soon, but it could happen.  I have been reminded recently that we do not need to take this, of all freedoms, lightly.  I know I am one that needs to be much more vocal about what I say to people, not just the "way I live."  Someday it might not be near as easy to speak the name of Christ as it is now, but be encouraged!  Even if that right were ever taken away, the rocks and hills would cry out!  Dostoyevsky may have been only right about one of his quotes, cause think about it.....he came to Christ in a prison camp in Siberia.  Whatever the outcome of tomorrows election, let us go into the new presidency with a renewed sense of sharing the Gospel with the people we meet.  

I went to see Fireproof the other night with my twelve year old, Rebekah.  I cried through the entire movie.  Partly, because I had read that day that it had grossed more money to date than Religulous, and W (by Oliver Stone) put together.  I was praying for all the people that have heard the gospel through the film.  I also thought the writers did a wonderful job of picturing someone sharing his faith at work.  Some of his fellow firemen accepted and some of them didn't.  It was also shown as a process, a verbal process, as well as watching his life.  Good film.

One  idea, maybe you could strike up a conversation about the film with someone you know that is not a believer, yet has seen the movie, or maybe you could take someone to see it.  The teenage girl who sold Bekah and I our popcorn, asked us what we were seeing, and said, "Oh, I love that movie, I saw it twice."  She wasn't afraid of the "religious" connotations of it all, she just spoke our of her heart.  Who knows maybe it was the first time she had ever heard of the Gospel.  The possibilities are endless.  God is giving me renewed zeal.  I hope this election cycle has found you in the same place.  

P.S.   If you have not read The Brothers Karazamov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky now would be a great time to read it.  If you have read it and it has been a while, read it again.  He, in one way, goes through the gamut of humanity and shows how different people respond to the knowledge of having a God who is ruler.  It is fascinating how the different "brothers" have different responses.  I am by no means a literary scholar on this novel, it is one of the hardest I have waded through, but well worth it.  It is also well worth reading the great minds that have analyzed it.