In Despair, God Reminds Us of Freedom in Salvation

In Despair, God Reminds Us of Freedom in Salvation

“‘I tell you the truth everyone who sins is a slave of sin. A slave is not a permanent member of the family but a son is part of the family forever. So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free. But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life.’” John 8:34-36 and Romans 6:22 (NLT)

Khen Lim

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Her side of their bed is now creaseless and her blanket remains folded. That side has not been slept by anyone since. Similarly, her bedside light has not been turned on and neither her reading glasses above her books and periodicals been touched. Her slippers are still arranged neatly right next to her side of the bed and the walking stick that we bought her – which she never did use – remains where it has always been.

Since my mother passed away on October 22 2015 from duodenal cancer, my father has not been the same, which is understandable considering that they’d been married since 1957. That’s two short of sixty years together. 

In the sixteen months since, dad has taken her absence not in a very constructive way. It’s difficult to always try to talk him out of it because nagging just won’t work if the heart’s not there but not being able to say anything purpose to help him makes me helpless at the same time. 

Being a very young Christian who rarely reads God’s Word, dad’s spiritual immaturity means it’s not easy to help him see things in the ways of Christ. And so we’re left to try to cope with dad’s mood swings every day because some days, he’s fine but otherwise, he can be so enormously difficult that struggle isn’t the word to describe what my wife and I experience.

Grappling with loss

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Losing a mother isn’t something I’ve ever experienced. I wouldn’t have understood how difficult it might be to go through. My father wouldn’t understand what he had to face as well. A simple matter of a death (is death ever simple?) can take one’s breath away. In the case of my dad, it could take his life if he’d will it. Depression has since set in and although by nature he is negatively minded, it’s taken on monstrous proportions now.

Everything can be daunting to my father. Sign of dark clouds looming would mean not going out for dinner. Finding out every three weeks that he needs two or three pints for blood transfusion because of his very low haemoglobin count can set him off for the rest of the day. 

Even a little bit of waiting for his appointments with his medical specialists can get him unwound. Through all of this, my wife and I weather them come rain or shine. And there’s no one else around who can provide us emotional support.

So if anyone were to ask me, “If you could have anything in life, anything at all, what would it be?” how would I answer this? It’s either I want to the ground to crack open and swallow me up or I’d have nothing at all. Maybe I just want silence from everyone telling me what to do as if they understand the stress. 

Maybe, just maybe, I want people to feel pity for us because many a times, the loneliness in having to deal with the problem is staggering and overwhelming to say the least. Yes, in the end, come to think of it, maybe nothing at all. Often, I come to the point of thinking, perhaps, nothing anyone can offer will help.

God speaks

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Suddenly, I hear a voice but I see no one though I sense a ‘presence.’

“Oh, come on, son. Try. Just try.”

I look around once more. Left. Right. No one. My wife is outside working at her garden while the girls are fast asleep. It is afternoon and things have gone idyllic for a while though I’m there looking after them. My thoughts begin to race as I consider who might be talking to me. I think I know.

It’s as if He’s waiting to see how I’d respond.

“I feel so trapped, Lord. Life can be so tough, so stupefyingly tough. It’s been torturous to even consider how I could make it through the next few months let alone years given the overwhelming odds we need to face. We can’t go anywhere far because my dad needs us. We can’t go anywhere extravagant because all our finances are tied up in knots. We cannot do anything we like because we have the kids to think about.”

“And all this while, I feel like the four walls are closing in, slowly, one bit at a time.”

I sigh in hopeless trepidation.

I don’t see Him, not with my eyes but in my mind, I know He’s looking straight at me, wondering about my foolishness.

“Son, I’m talking about the possibilities I have offered you but you’ve set about feeling caged by your limitations,” He replied.

“Why are you living your life this way? It’s no wonder you struggle to even go through a day, let alone a whole week. That’s your mistake,” He continued.

“Have you thought about what you plan to do when the kids I have given you grow up?”

Stunned by the question, I propped straight up and wonder why that came from.

“What? Where did that come from??”

“Gimme a break, Lord. I mean… that’s a ridiculously long way away from where I am right now, right? Right?”

I felt I was really losing it now. I’m talking out loud but really, there’s no one around; at least, no one anyone can see. But in the end, I know I cannot question His presence any more than I can knock it out of the park. I knew too well He’s right there. In front of me.

Sensing that the Lord might probably be starting to give up on me, I said, “Okay, okay, no. No, You’re right. I have and I have not. But I’ve got such a full plate that I can’t see past my nose. I’m not sure if You know how I feel…”

“Of course, I do. After all, I am God. I created you. I am always ahead of all your thoughts. So I know.”

“Besides that, son, I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say to you. Your father is in good hands. It is you I am worried about. I want you to broaden the way you see things. Don’t confine yourself to looking at things with a half glass empty attitude. Instead I have given you the gift of imagination. So, go imagine the possibilities. Be hopeful. Be confident. Look ahead and know I am always there with you.”

“When you find the door you want to open, I will be there. Just because life has thrown you a few curve balls lately doesn’t mean you cannot take the steps forward. Free yourself from the bondage that has been holding you back. The future is exciting for you, son. I have made it so but you cannot get there with the attitude you now have.”

And that’s when I realise that God was right, as always. But He wasn’t done with me yet.

“You need ‘something’ to make you feel certain you can do anything?”

I looked at him completely surprised he knew that was what I was thinking.

“Son, I have already given you that ‘something.’ You have been ready for that next step for a long time. You just didn’t look in the right direction.”

Freedom Christ-defined

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From that day onwards, I have not forgotten the incident. It’s as if it was branded into my cerebral cortex.

With that ‘something,’ God was talking about freedom. In Romans 8:15 (NLT), the Apostle Paul reminds us, saying:

“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call him ‘Abba, Father.’”

Through the cross of Christ, we have been set to freedom from the guilt and condemnation of the flesh. Ephesians 1:7 (NLT) says, “He is so rich in kindness and grace that He purchased our freedom with the blood of His Son and forgave our sins.” With this freedom, we are no longer bound to the shackles that limit what we could do. We are no more enslaved to a condemned life but one that now unbounded to fully realise our potential for the glory of God.

When Jesus began His ministry, He declared, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, for He has anointed Me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free” (Lk 4:18, NLT). And the Son went on to fully fulfil His mission by dying on the cross, absorbing our transgressions in a humanly improbable act to free all of us. By using His Son’s death to achieve this, our bonds are released and we can walk away from the realm of darkness and into His kingdom of eternal light (Col 1:13). As Paul says:

“…God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving His Son as a sacrifice for our sins.” (Rom 8:3, NLT)

Before we accepted Christ’s gift of salvation, as unbelievers, we were fearful of things unknown. We felt that we have to control everything in our lives. Where control was not possible, we’d freaked out. Such was the case where we are most afraid of the mystery of death. What laid behind death was always something that gripped us in fear mainly because we had no understanding of and no assurance of what would come next.

“We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.” (Rom 6:6, NLT)

Even so, as Christians, many of us remain afraid of sin’s power to drag us back and hold us down. We somehow become prone to that feeling that we’re still bonded to sin and fear its ravaging destruction over us. But by Him dying on the cross and defeating death through His resurrection, He did what no one else could do; He gave us the freedom to walk away from the fear of death. He gave us every reason to know that only He could give us the power to free ourselves from sin’s stranglehold.

“For only as a human being could He die and only by dying could He break the power of the devil who had the power of death. Only in this way could He set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.” (Heb 2:14-15, NLT)

The ravages of sin aren’t just seen in evil thoughts that pervade our consciousness. It’s also the subtle ways in which we feel discouragement and frustration. It’s the very thing that tells us we will never win or we will never get things done. Or we might as well give up because the light at the other end of the tunnel won’t be there. 

To go through life, handling two little baby girls as well as a depressed father who has a litany of different illnesses require immense courage and faith but the devil’s lies hold us back from being able to overcome. He tempts us into his lair of disreality where we fall into the bounds of limiting our imagination to do good. 

He continues relentlessly to bombard our conscience with endless deceptions about what we can and cannot do and then lures us to feel bitterness, hatred and disillusionment about how my wife and I feel deserted in trying to cope with everything.

That voice of evil wants to master over us but Christ affirms us that, through Him, death no longer has a grip over our lives anymore. His dominion is over:

“So now, there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” (Rom 8:1, NLT)

And there’s a good reason why too – Scripture tells us that in Christ’s death and resurrection, we have “received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him ‘Abba, Father!’” (Rom 8:15, NLT)

Before we were saved, darkness reigned in our lives. We were heartless, not understanding or even rejecting God’s counsel. We willingly subjected ourselves into bondage through the works of evil. Surreptitiously, we lost our freedom though we hardly knew it at that time. And with freedom lost, we were trapped in a cesspool of oppression, frustration and depression. The darkness foretold hopelessness in which the devil’s conviction is that no one will save us because we’re unworthy to be saved.

By the death of His Son on the cross, we now can walk away from all our bondages. From the dark comes bright hope illuminated by the cross upon which Christ delivered us from sin. We are now liberated from sin’s captivity. We are now born into new life (Rom 6:3-5).  

But now the question is, if Christ has set us free from being consumed by darkness, can or should we allow ourselves to be bound up again? Do we go about feeling limited about what we can do because we think we’re going nowhere? Have we gained and then lost that freedom because we willed ourselves in pity and despair?

In this regard especially, Scripture offers us two reminders:

“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.” (Gal 5:13, NLT)

And,

“God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives.” (1 Thes 4:7, NLT)

Paul, being the writer in both instances, penned them in letters to the churches of Galatia and Thessaloniki, which in today’s terms, would be people like us. In both verses, the Apostle reminds us that Christ has set us free from sin so that we be sanctified to Him. He did not die on the cross for us to perpetuate in sin and live a life of impurity and debauchery or to indulge in the weaknesses of the dark. To be sanctified to Christ implies a practice in a life of obedience and holiness.

It does not mean that while we consider ourselves recipients of the gift of salvation, we can continue to indulge ourselves as if we were never saved in the first place. As our lives have changed through and in Christ, we cannot go on doing whatever and whenever we please; neither can we live in reckless lawlessness and still be thankful for the blood of Christ to cover us. In other words, we are believers now; so act like believers!

Freedom to change anew

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To the Romans, Paul writes, “Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not!” (Rom 6:15, NLT) Similarly Peter says, “For you are free, you are God’s slaves, so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil.” (1 Pt 2:16, NLT) Peter’s use of the word ‘slaves’ is interesting for it raises the question of whether we are slaves to sin or to God. 

To be a slave to sin ensures that we are back in bondage, scraping the barrel looking for answers while we take in all the bitterness of a fruitless life. On the other hand, to be a slave of God means we obey His call to obedience and righteousness (Rom 6:16), without which, we “will not see the Lord” (Heb 12:14, NLT).

Though we are saved, we still need God for His timely reminders. Only He can fill the gaps in our lives from within which, we remain vulnerable. Sin isn’t just the usual obvious bad things we say or do. We know it applies if we rob the bank, murder someone, commit adultery and do the very things that everyone knows is wrong. 

But in this case, sin is subtle and it creeps up on us without us realising it. On the occasion that God’s presence was a timely reminder, I was shaken to the core when His words resonated in such a brutally honest way.

Losing someone so precious in our lives is always a very difficult emotion to overcome. People say time heals but obviously we cannot wait forever either. The idea of instant gratification is that we expect to get over it very quickly but in a perverse way, sometimes we don’t want that. 

Instead we somehow find ways to feel guilt, remorse and self-pity. We think we didn’t do enough and wish we could wind back the clock and do better. Invariably we can caught up in a maelstrom of depression, despair and distraught, and as a result, think we don’t deserve to get over it.

Through the past number of years, my father’s health has been steadily declining. Today he needs medical attention for his diabetes, blood (high platelets and very low haemoglobin), heart (occasional failure), kidneys (approaching dialysis stage), prostate and even the occasionally inability to walk (lumbar nerve compression). 

None of these are straightforward to deal with. In fact when one aspect of his health looks great, the others need extra attention. The desire to seek a balanced outlook is what we pursue all the time but seldom achievable.

In the meantime, the two little girls are right in the period of painful teething, which means frequent bouts of fever, diarrhoea et cetera accompanied by lots of tears and sleep deprivation for all of us. The recent time when dad was in the hospital Intensive Care Unit (ICU) was a very difficult trial for us because my wife and I had to split our time and priorities. Even so, our struggles spread us precariously thin. Thank heavens for the many who offered prayers.

Surrounded by all this, neither my wife nor I could afford to fall sick but invariably, it was the girls who came down with the flu. With my dad in ICU due to pneumonia (read here for more), the possibility that on discharge, he could be infected straightaway was frighteningly real and potentially deadly for him. And all that merely added to our burden. We often wondered when that straw that would finally break the camel’s back was going to come.

With one thing leading to another, we were really struggling to hold ourselves together. At times, we were worried that the problems would simply tear us apart but the more we thought about what was happening, the worst they actually appeared. We ended up scaring ourselves unnecessarily. 

We spurned chances to do little things but happy things because our worries made it impossible for us to enjoy them. Dad’s occasionally outbursts would cause either one of us to suffer inexorably. In moments like this, my wife would use me as a punching bag (or vice-versa) for emotional release.

God’s lifetime assurance

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“Son, where you find My Spirit, you will find freedom. It is this that will set you free,” God said.

“But where were you when I needed You most, Lord? There have been times when Your silence was so hard to cope with.” I asked.

“I have always been there, right next to you,” He replied and continued, “But you were too distracted by the noise around you to realise that. You looked at all the wrong places for the answers you need when all you should’ve done was to be still and find Me.”

“I love you so much that My Son had to die on the cross to absolve you of your sins. You don’t need to go through all the dark places again and suffer at the hands of evil. I have everything you need. Just ask, son. Just ask.”

“And see what I can do for you.”

With my face buried in the palms of my hands, my knees began to buckle and I slowly collapsed on to the floor. God’s love was so abundant that it was impossible not to feel it coursing through my body. I was tinging all over and at times, chills and shivers went all the way my spine. I looked up at the ceiling as if it was opened for me to see His kingdom.

I knew He was up there somewhere. I was aware He knew how I felt at that moment in time. It was like a whole lot of burden just got lifted up from my shoulders. I felt a sense of lightness even as I sat on the floor. 

One moment I had collapsed under the weight of my realisation and the next, this lightness that felt like lifting me upwards. It was a very unusual sense of freedom I was experiencing, the type that works from the inside of my head and the swelling of my heart.

I was wrong to have felt a loss of purpose and God was right in showing me the way out. When I felt my life was so filled with frustration, I had lost my way with God. He didn’t leave me; surreptitiously it was I who left Him behind to fight my battles on my own.

Author Doug Stewart once said, “Freedom has a price and it is high. Sometimes a man must give all he can, sometimes a man must die.” He might not have meant it but I like to think that he was referring to Jesus, the man who had to die for us to have our freedom.