Freedom

In the course of my work I come into contact with people who become indignant because they believe I am restricting their freedom.  I recently had one guy (who was on his way to jail) tell me that we [law enforcement] "make it impossible to live."  It seems to be a recurring theme I keep running into and has caused me to reflect on the concept of freedom.  Here are a few of my rambling thoughts...

Freedom isn't an idea or concept.  Freedom is the result of abiding by truth.  In John 8:32, Jesus taught, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."  Therefore, freedom isn't something given by a government, or even the Creator as stated in the American Declaration of Independence.  God cannot make us free, He simply created the environment for us to become free.  We must choose to become free.

In the Church we talk a lot about "free agency" or "agency".  We talk about it as a a "gift" or something God gave us in the pre-mortal world.  It wasn't freedom, but the ability to choose liberty or captivity.

The prophet Lehi was a great teacher on the subject of freedom.  He said, "Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself." (2 Nephi 2:27)

When Lehi says "free to choose", I believe he's using the term "free" in the sense that we are "allowed" to choose.  Good and evil must exist in order for use to be allowed to choose between them.  If only one exists, there is no choice.

Freedom comes through exact obedience to eternal truth.  God, who is the freest of all beings in the universe, chooses to be perfectly obedient to all truth - which He perfectly comprehends.  His perfect knowledge does not make Him free, but comes as a combination of His perfect knowledge of truth and His perfect performance of it.

And this sums up the point of everything.  The entire plan of salvation is God, our Father, simply trying to teach us eternal truth and how to live it as He does.  God didn't create the plan, or even truth itself.  The commandments are not simply His ideas for good living.  The commandments are eternal truths that He teaches to us in hopes that we will choose to live according to them and become free like He is.

I was walking my 85 pound German Shepherd the other day and she was pulling on the leash like a team of mules.  I said to her, "If you'd only listen to me, then you wouldn't have to be on this leash and could have so much more freedom."  In that very instant, the Spirit spoke to me and said, "that applies to you as well"!  Freedom comes from abiding by just laws.

Not all laws of men are just, but the laws of God (which are simply eternal truths He willing lives by) are perfectly just - and when we learn to live by them, we will be perfectly free.  I think that's really the point of everything we are trying to do.

Our Father, an exalted, glorified being, has mastered these eternal truths and therefore lives in a state of freedom and power beyond our imagination.  He wants to teach these truths to us and created the world as our laboratory so we can begin to apply the truths we learn.

Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we gain the power to rise above our mortal failings and actually live the eternal truths which will bring us to the state where we too can live in perfect harmony with eternal law.  And when we do, the truth will set us free - free to expand and create just as our Father does.