Setting our souls free

Personal Photo: This is a favorite photo of mine from my running years! My favorite course, both Josh and Jason able to come to it, and a great race. Running was a sense of freedom to me, but nothing like the freedom that I feel in my heart when I recognize the presence of God in my life. His love is always abundant, renewing my faith and keeping my worries at bay :)

When I was in high school, I was a long-distance runner, which meant that I ran hundreds of miles every summer to train for cross country and I spent my springs in the center of a track, waiting for my two-mile race. Usually when teammates prepared for a race, they would listen to some motivating music, get pumped up, and have adrenaline flowing by the time they made it to the start line. For me, I have always put an immense amount of pressure on myself. Not just in running, but in all areas of my life I strive for perfection and am disappointed when I inevitably do not measure up to it. Because I would get so nervous about not performing well while racing, I developed little tricks that would help keep my worry levels low. For example, I would put my headphones in on the way to the race and listen to soothing music, like Keith Whitley or Iyaz, to keep myself relaxed. During our team prayer, I always silently added at the end of it that I hope God helps us to have fun while we race. When I would get too nervous about it, I would remind myself that there is nothing more I can do to make my race go any better while I am standing on the start line; I would just do my best.

Usually, my methods worked. It calmed me down and I could focus on just relaxing and doing something I loved to do. Running was freeing for me; it took me places that I never thought I could go. It taught me about a strength within myself to be able to push my boundaries further and further. And I share this little bit of background with you because it leads up to a moment in my life that I will never forget. It was the day before a big race, near the end of the season. I was starting to let myself get nervous, and I was struggling to keep my calm. I fell asleep that night and when I woke up the next morning, in my hand, under my pillow, was my favorite ceramic cross that hangs in my bedroom. I did not remember waking up in the night and taking it off of the nail that it hangs on. It was such a bold statement from God. He knew I was getting nervous and beginning to worry. And He placed Himself at my fingertips to remind me about His presence.

I went on to race well, but so much bigger than the running that day was how waking up with the cross in my hand changed my life. I had never experienced something so directly from God. Remembering this story made me think about one of my favorite Bible verses. If you ever visit the main Sonshine Lane blog website, you will see that the verse I have chosen to put in the header is 2 Corinthians 3:17, which reads as follows: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." You will find it on the website, on Sonshine Lane's Instagram page, my personal Instagram and Facebook account, the T-shirts I designed for the blog, and so many other places. When I considered a topic for you all this week, I debated about which topic to tackle; I struggled this week like no other. Between a flurry of work, learning new things, burnout, and a lack of time, I had a plethora of different things I could have shared as a reminder for us all to come to God. However, the concept of freedom had me hooked. The verse from 2 Corinthians was something I so often refer back to, but the truth is that we can easily overlook the meaning and the role of freedom in our lives.

I think if I asked most of you, you would believe that you have the freedom to make choices. Free to choose what to eat at lunch, when to go grocery shopping, what time you want to go to bed, etc. We are very blessed if we can say that. However, with that being said, if I asked you if you feel free, you might think differently about your answer. We are all bound by the constraints of time, rules, society, and more. We have to show up to classes and work at a certain time, we have a designated time for lunch, we have family events and commitments we have to keep, we have things both small and large that, when the list begins to grow, can make us feel as if we are in a strait jacket. And we don't feel free anymore. So when I am talking about the concept of being free in this article, I am not talking about the truth of our living in a free country, or the ability to choose, but more so the freedom of the soul. That internal freedom that makes us feel alive is what I am capturing here. And not only do physical events and deadlines hold us back from feeling free, but so do the emotions we experience and handle. We wrestle with worry, fear, regret, rejection, and so much more that create unhealthy stress in our lives and can cause us to feel as though the walls are closing in.

The emotions I listed above cannot coexist with the feeling of freedom. We do not simultaneously feel regretful and free, or worrisome and free. In this way, we can see how we might very often give up the feeling of freedom and replace it with these stressors. Worry and fear can quickly take away our peace and make us feel trapped, with little control. Everyone does it, and we usually only experience these potentially harmful emotions because we care. We care about our grades, our sports, our friends, our family, our jobs. So, in turn, we worry about exams, matches, travelling, safety, health, our future, and our performance. Admirable, yes, but when it spirals, it can be very debilitating. This is why waking up with the cross in my hand was so impactful for me; We have no need to worry. 1 Peter 5:7 tells us to "Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." We can lay all of the things we stress over, fear, regret, and more at the feet of Jesus and He will work them out for us. He cares, just like we do. Because we are directly told here that Jesus cares about us and the things we are invested in, we can appreciate Ephesians 3:12, where we are told that "In Him and through faith in Him we may approach God with freedom and confidence." Understanding that we can call upon God because He cares as much and more than we do, we can begin to recognize where the source of freedom for the soul is.

This brings me back to where we started: "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17)" Searching for freedom is not where we start when we want to find relief, but rather we start by searching for the Holy Spirit. Freedom does not harbor the Holy Spirit, but the other way around. Where God is, there is freedom, there is peace, there is distance from worry, stress, anger, and more. In this way, we can find our way to God and come to Him with a humble heart, ready to hand off all of the things we carry on our shoulders every day.

My story above emphasizes the concept of worrying, but I want to make sure that it is clear that we find freedom from all of the things that we handle here on earth when we lay them at God's feet. Jesus frees us from the shackles of sin, earthly temptations, regrets, worries, failures, and so much more. We can leave it behind us because 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 reminds us that "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen." In this way we are able to rest in the ability to shed our worries because Jesus will renew our soul and free us from sin every single day, and we can start again. We might fail, do things we might regret, worry about something silly or something important, fear the unknown, but when I catch myself doing it, I remind myself of waking up with the cross in my hand. Jesus is at our fingertips, and He is ready to remove the worries of our lives, the fear of the unknown, and the other stressors we carry. He cares just like we do, and when we remember this, we can find a sense of freedom in our hearts.

To me, freedom is the wildness of living untamed. Jesus brings this restlessness to our hearts when we are at peace, urging us to make a difference for Him and sharing in the freedom we experience. Joy, happiness, gratitude, and perspective are all examples of how God brings a sense of freedom to our lives. Through these avenues, we can bring people to Christ, we can feel inspired by His love, and consider Isaiah 40:31, where we are told that "But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint." This is the freedom of the soul that I am talking about; this is the restlessness that reminds us of the almighty power of our heavenly Father and His love for each and every one of us. Just like how God closed the space between me and the cross on my wall when I was overwhelmed with pressure, He will close the gap between us and Him every time we feel the walls closing in. Romans 8:38-39 reads "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." This verse is the heart of my message. When we feel trapped, when we have more worries on our list than pieces of joy, when we are consumed with fear, anger, regret, anxiousness, and more, we can find freedom in the Lord. He will be with us, setting us free from sin and worry every single day, and closing the gap between us and Him. Nothing can keep us from God's love and His love is what will set us free, renewing our spirit every day!