As we in the West, specifically, Canada (July 1st), America (July 4th), and France (July 14th), prepare to celebrate our respective "independence" days this month, I think often of how privileged we are to do so.  After traveling recently through some of the countries under the grip of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and hearing firsthand about the many restrictions on social, economic, and personal freedom its people endured for too many decades, I am doubly thankful.  At the same time, however, I am painfully aware that we in the West have been "free" for as long as we have not because of who we are but because of how, through a series of cultural and historical circumstances over which we did not have full control, we landed as we have.  We are neither better nor worse, nor are we necessarily luckier or more deeply blessed.  We all live in the shadow and legacy of various forces and agencies, eternal and not, that silently shape human destiny, forces and agencies that, unbeknownst to us, have also led us to define freedom as we do.
     There is freedom, and there is freedom.  One day, while talking to a group of his opponents, Jesus remarked, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).  What did Jesus mean?  We all deserve personal freedom, yes, and we all deserve to know truth.  Both are within our grasp as human beings.  Genuine freedom, however, is more than either one.  Genuine freedom is understanding why we can even entertain the idea of freedom at all, why we are beings who are capable of comprehending such a thing.  Genuine freedom is knowing why we are here, why we are how we are, and why one day we will no longer be around.  And these are questions that, finite and limited that we are, we will never understand on our own.  How can we?
     Whatever freedom you seek--and we all seek some--seek foremost the freedom in which freedom itself is found:  the freedom of knowing the fact and truth of, in Jesus Christ, the person of God.  For it is from God, the progenitor of order and meaning in the universe, that all freedom must ultimately come.
     In short, we're free to be free, but we are not free to be free to be free.
     Have a great day.