If you live in America, you may be aware that today is President's Day.  This is a day on which some Americans remember two people who are generally considered to be among America's finest chief executives, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Washington of course is viewed as the father of the United States, the one whose leadership carried the fledgling nation through its revolt against Great Britain and oversaw the process by which the former colonials developed a constitution with which to govern their newly minted land.  Lincoln, on the other hand is remembered as the one who held the Union together during the difficult days of the Civil War and who issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed America's slaves.
     Rightly do Americans remember Washington and Lincoln; their actions have exercised profound effects on the country.  On this day, however, as I contemplate their lives, I also want to honor liberators in other nations, people who devoted their lives to setting their own countries free from foreign oppression.  I think about Simon Bolivar, the so-called George Washington of South America, whose energetic leadership and military prowess enabled many Latin Americans to find the liberty which they enjoy today.  Inspired by Bolivar, countless peoples across that southern continent rose up to wrest control of their lives from their Spanish overlords.  In a sign of the region's emergence into the company of the nations, we note that Brazil will host the 2016 Olympics.
     I also think about Mahatma Gandhi, the wise and forgiving Hindu of India who, by implementing his notion of satygraha (grasping the truth) in his vast country, led his people to evict the mighty and exploitative British Empire from India in a nearly non-violent way.  Today, although it is by no means immune from problems, India is rapidly taking its place as one of the largest economic engines on the planet.
     In addition, I remember Nelson Mandela of South Africa.  Imprisoned for twenty-seven years for crimes which to this day no one can prove, absolutely, he committed, Mandela, evinced nothing but forgiveness and magnanimity upon being released.  He continued in this vein as he led his nation to break the back of apartheid, the horrific system of racial segregation sustained by, regrettably, their British rulers.  Although South Africa continues to struggle with the vestiges of its past, its people are now free to do so on their own.  The West must stand by.
     President's Day reminds us that every human being deserves freedom.  God did not make people to be enslaved and imprisoned unjustly.  He made them to discover themselves and to flourish.  God desires that everyone find his or her capacities and life vision.  He wishes for all of his creation to be who they most ought to be.
     God is a God of freedom whose intention is to set us all free.  Be it moral, physical, or emotional, God wants us to be free.  He wants us to be free to pursue the absolutely greatest thing:  his love, in Jesus Christ, for us.