It took me awhile to figure out that God will bless me more with my freedom than I can.

I used to guard my freedom carefully. To begin with, I avoided trying God for years because I feared it would mean the loss of all freedom. Then when I surrendered to God’s love, I quickly saw that He blessed me far more in exercising his freedom to direct my life than I could ever imagine or accomplish.

Yet even after years of knowing God — and with a history of being blessed by him — I STILL wrestle with giving up my freedom; I am sometimes slow to exchange it for his choice for me.

How foolish, how futile…. and the most effective way to rob oneself! Without exception, I have always regretted choosing my way over His; and I have NEVER regretted choosing his choice for me.

Jesus knew we would face this struggle.

Indeed, as a man in a flesh suit like us, I believe he experienced this struggle as well, which could well be one reason why he carefully said to his disciples before going to the cross:

Remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love.

John 15:9-10

When Jesus says, you will remain in my love, he is not saying he will only keep loving you if you obey him!

He is saying, I want you to experience all the fullness of my love for you. I want my love to be the foundation and definition of your life. I want you to LIVE there.

I can identify with this through the experience of raising my children.

loved my children far more than I could effectively act on. Why do I say this?

It didn’t start out that way. When they were very little, my love determined most everything that affected their lives. But as they grew up they had increasing freedom of choice, and sometimes they made choices that subtracted from all I wanted for them out of the fullness of my love. In other words, their freedom of choice didn’t diminish my love for them, but it did diminish the degree to which my love for them would cover, protect, bless and help them.

Of course, my choices would admittedly be imperfect and perhaps not all wise or even best for them, but that’s not true of the Lord. We can be sure the Lord’s choices for us are always all of those things. I say it often: God’s will is His love coming to you.

You can’t spend your freedom on anything better than that.