The past few months have reminded me of my fragility. I’ve realised I’m not as free as I had believed. I believed myself to be relatively free from insecurity. I thought I was relatively free from the fear of poverty. It seems it only takes a global pandemic to rock my confidence and my victory over the fears that once held me captive.

Before the crisis, I was thriving. I felt I was overcoming the uncertainty of my 20’s and stepping into a new sense of identity as a 30-something. ‘This is what living in Freedom feels like,’ I thought, ‘becoming naturally stronger and more mature every day. Dealing better with stress and looking to Jesus as my source.’ But all of these things are far easier when waters are still. All of these things are a doddle when life is grinding by predictably.

I have remembered recently that a crisis can weaken my defenses. As everything about my life has shifted, my experience and understanding of freedom have shifted too. When life becomes unstable in new ways, we can find ourselves relying on old coping mechanisms to survive. We can find ourselves returning to the prison of our bad habits, doubts, and fears.

But there is very good news. We have an uncompromisable Freedom in Christ who will never leave, nor forsake us. When we have no strength of our own to speak of, God can meet us within the confines of our weakness and lead us out. When we fall into old behaviour patterns, bound within old strongholds, God can meet us behind the bars. When we don’t have the strength even to lay down our burdens, God is able to find us where we are and lift them. The recent season has taught me once again to allow God to meet me, carry me, and bring me to the Freedom that is only found in him. Not in my efficacy as a Christian or an adult. He has set us free by grace alone,  both once and for all, and in our daily walk.

I was far better at grasping this in the early days of my faith. Knowing nothing other, I was fully reliant on God as a baby believer for my daily strength. He had saved me from living within the entrapments of fear and depression. He had led me gently out of the confines of unhealthy relationships and broken the chains of darkness I’d been dragging around. Today, it’s important for me to remember, I did nothing to earn or work for that. It wasn’t my maturity or understanding that brought me to freedom. I didn’t discover it, it found me.

The song Freedom found me, is my declaration of Freedom in Christ. When we hear God’s voice, the chains come loose once more. We know that our past is forgiven, removed from us as far as the East is from the West. And life in Jesus is so so worth living.