Free Resources

When was the last time you got something for free and than waited, wondering what you had to pay for the item or service? There is always a catch, isn't there? We suspect free and yet I do believe we have all experienced it in one form or another, wouldn't you agree? Think about the last time you had to pay for say, air? Unless you are on oxygen plugged into a power source that you have to pay for, you pretty much get to breathe for the cheap and nonexistent price of free. Let us go back into the past when you were a babe in arms. You got fed, clothed, sheltered, picked up after and you even made middle of the night and early morning calls for room service and not once was an invoice slipped under your door with the expectation that you would have to supply a credit card payment for services rendered. Fast forward to your now, what is free in your life? Don't be cynical now, you get to be quietly honest and grateful for things that are free that you could not possibly afford or put a price on. I will be sharp and blunt here: if you have a child that is completely healthy, you have been given one of the greatest free gifts this life has to offer my friend, regardless of your relationship with them. Health is life and life is our greatest gift and it is with this in mind that I write. While reading, you are free to feel, think, breathe in and out as you contemplate and consider. You are free to stop reading and start again or move on to something else to return or never again resume. You are free in countless and wondrous ways and in one outstanding and immeasurably precious way, you have freedom of will. We have each been entrusted with the huge responsibility of being free to choose because the gift of free, of freedom, is ours as a birth right. The imposition of will on another is a violation of this first human right and it is an outrage to our very spirits as witnesses when we experience this personally or vicariously. We are by our very nature, free and want this for one another, don't we? Wait, wait a minute, there is a catch, right? I mean you and I, we are not naive nor are we stupid. Nothing in life is free. We have to pay for our freedom, fight for it to secure our autonomy and rights as choosers. Yet still, even when we fight, we are not guaranteed our freedom, our safety. Look at the world around us, what you are reading is true, is it not? We have freedom of will in a world where others are comfortable imposing on and even stealing life away from us. Our  lives were freely given once, when we were born and while here, in this world, the life we live is subject to the whims and carelessness of others. The freedom of will that is our birthright was not given so that we could choose what we eat, wear, listen to on the radio or what country we choose to live in or friends we choose to love. It was given to you, to me to choose or not choose, God. Free to choose, and yes, there was a price, a hefty unspeakably high price that paid for our freedom. Picture Him there, dying on a cross for the sins of the world. See Him resurrected to prove that life after death is possible through Him. Envision Him beckoning you, inviting you to freely choose Him as the door to true freedom in this life and the one promised in the here after. Our Free Resource is Christ and He paid our ticket to ride long before our first free breath. Won't you put your trust in Him today? You have been stamped paid in full, go on, take the ticket that is waiting at the Gate.