I read a short story once about a kite. The kite loved to fly. He admired how his tail danced. He adored looking down on the people and things below and he relished how they gazed at him. The feeling of the wind driving him upward was exhilarating. Everything about flying was wonderful. Well, everything but the string that held him down. He wanted to go higher! So he tugged at the string. He ached for the clouds and pulled and pulled with all his might. Finally, the string broke and joy overwhelmed the little kite. But instead of soaring away like an eagle the poor kite began to falter, then flutter, and then fall. Because of course little kites cannot fly without their string.

We introduced a new hymn last Sunday, Come Ye Souls By Sin Afflicted. I love it. It's an old hymn that has been retuned by Indelible Grace. I love how the song progresses from inviting the broken in the first verse, to taking His easy yoke, to being blessed, to going home to be with him. I also love the line "Blessed are the souls that trust Him, and in Him alone rejoice; His commandments then become their happy choice." Commandments become their happy choice! How weird and amazing. That sounds so hard that the rules and constraints that God places on our lives can and will become the things we long to do as we trust Him and celebrate and rejoice in Him and only in Him. How?!?!

Tim Keller said it well when he wrote, “Freedom, then, is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us.” Freedom is not taking your car and driving it wherever you want. A car in the middle of the lake is not free, it is sinking. A train off of its tracks is not free, it is broken. A kite off of its string is not free, it is falling. You apart from God is not free, you are dying. When we rejoice in Him and only in Him His commandments become our happy choice.

Grace & peace