My Independence Day

Last night I went for a walk through my community.  It seemed like every corner held its own celebration.  I just walked taking it all in.  I inhaled my culture as hips were shaking to blasting music, laughing cosigned conversations.  People sat out on the lawns enjoying one another, embracing new births, honoring the presence of elderly, ooing and awing over the beautiful colors and designs in the sky from fireworks.  This is what I missed last year.  It was this celebration of my country’s independence that I missed from being on the World Race.

While I love celebrations and look for every opportunity to throw a party of some sort, the independence I received last year was far better than fire works and a cookout.  

As my daddy always says, “You ain’t through learnin.  Don’t think you’ve arrived ’cause you ain’t.”  He is so right because though I’ve been in church since I was conceived everyday it seems like I learn more and more about my Father’s love for me. 

 

While I was on the race last year I was forced to abandon many of my comforts due to the country I was in.  One of the things that was most difficult for me to abandon at first was my favorite soap opera: Days of Our Lives. 

 

I started watching that soap when I was just eleven years old.  I got so addicted that I would I turn my phone off when watching so no one could bother me.  I would even be rude to family members if they talked to me during it.  I knew it so well that I could have written each episode and at one time I actually desired to be on the writing staff.  I allowed that show to not only consume my thoughts but influence the way I handled situations and relationships.  It even entered my dreams. 

 

Several times my mom told me I should stop watching it but I thought she was crazy.  “It’s not effecting me,” I’d lie.  Many of those characters seemed like my best friends and I just had to see them everyday.  I even read the soap books to get previews and became a member of the website so that I could get sneak peeks. 

 

It was probably about this time last year that it hit me, “I’ve gone seven months without watching Days, looking at the webpage or anything.  I’ve been perfectly fine without it.”  I noticed a difference in myself.

 

Today I am happy to say that I’ve not watched one episode in a year and seven months.  I am free from the chains that were binding me to that show.  My mind is free from the thinking that developed due to my addiction to that show.

Philippians 4:8 

Finally,
brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there
is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about
these things.

My daddy preached a sermon yesterday about our true Independence Days being in a relationship with Jesus.  I whole-heartedly agree with him.  I also know that many of us believers are still enslaved to desires of the flesh.  It is human to want to live to please ourselves and not God.  

 

• Galatians 5:1 
  
  For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

• Galatians 5:13 
  For
  you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an
  opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
• 1 Peter 2:16 
  Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.