The Burden Of Freedom

There is no greater burden than freedom, no heavier load than liberty. Over six billion people call our fragile earth home ,and nearly everyone would claim they are free without any working definition of the concept. Many nations who were forged in the fires of oppression and emerged from the dust of colonialism and slavery are still struggling, after many years of independence, to find the trophy of true freedom. At the threshold of a bloody civil war,Abraham Lincoln complained that he knew no good definition of freedom; the situation is no different in our day.

Nigeria owes me nothing but when l think about the time before independence one thing comes to mind; When people are oppressed, they develop a spirit of irresponsibility and hatred for work and people who hate work can't handle time. They become irritated and depressed when they have time on their hands, because time demands the responsibility of deciding how to spend it. They love it when people drive them and tell them what to do,because they have the spirit of the slave. And because nothing a slave does is for his own good, people who have been oppressed for years have difficulty with productivity. Most Third World Nations are suffering from this today.

Nigeria may have been delivered from the hands of the colonial masters but she is not free. Deliverance is physical liberation from physical restrictions, it is the removal of the oppressed from the environment of the oppressor,it is the separation of the slave from the physical conditions of slavery,  it is not freedom.

We must learn that freedom is not the absence of law, work or labor, but the embracing of responsibility. We must be awakened to the reality that true freedom  imposes more laws, demands more self control, more work and discipline than slavery. ln slavery you do not manage-you are managed. Freedom on the other hand is a responsibility of stewardship.
Freedom must not be confused with independence. The great King Solomon says" Woe to you,O land whose King was a servant " the implication is that when a formerly oppressed person is suddenly given power and authority, the prospects for good leadership are dim.Many nations are suffering from this principle which denotes that wearing a crown does not change your mind. A delivered body does not guarantee a free mind. The only road to true freedom is self-discovery in God the creator.

Free at last ...Free at last...Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last!. These powerful words of America's great civil rights deliverer,Martin Luther King, jr stunned the world in the 1960's. Dr king, like Nelson Mandela,Gandhi et al.  These men as great as their efforts proved were only their follower's deliverers, because freedom is a matter of the mind. The big question is are you really free?

Today as we mark our nations birthday, take out time and pray for HER. HAPPY INDEPENDENCE!!!