Memorial Day is here and as we sit at home relaxing or enjoying our barbecues with neighbors and friends I want to remember those who have given all they have. In some cases this has been lives laid down. Seeing caskets still coming home with flags of our nation draped over them never gets any easier and like most, my first reaction is to want to ask for our sons, daughters, brothers and fathers to all come home to this land of freedom. It’s a common reaction not to want those we care about come into harms way.
The bigger picture is to see our freedom is not paid for once only by past generations but it continues to be a fight we must endure. We must be willing to stand guard always for the liberty of those not strong enough to fight for themselves. This freedom we fight for is not spoken of on the nightly news but it is a fight to the death and I speak of death to our spiritual voice.
Our freedom and pursuit of knowledge is key for healthy living. I don’t deny I get twisted up about those who would use our freedom to push evils onto ourselves and our children but I am one who believes in the bigger truth that light overcomes darkness. The absence of light breeds hatred, contempt and a lonely emptiness. All the ills of the world come from darkness. Darkness lacks freedom to pursue our hearts; it keeps us in bondage to death.
The good news is that darkness cannot penetrate light. When you turn on a lamp at night and open a window into darkness, did you ever notice it’s not the darkness that comes in but it’s the rays of light that go out overcoming the very depths of blackness.
I like to think of each and every soldier we send into other nations as possible lights for freedom; to shine as torches into closets of darkness, sharing new understanding that others don’t have to live as captives but can come into places of liberty. They can emerge from darkness to follow light and live in hope.
From Isa 61:1…..”To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;”