Freedom and Helplessness – Sunday, May 06, 1984
It is ironic that at a time when we have technology that probes the expanding edges of our galaxy and the spinning center of an atom, when a world of information is instantly available to us on the evening news, that so many should feel helpless. Perhaps it is because our increased information makes us more aware of the problems we can’t solve. What is anyone of us to do about the starvation in West Africa, the war in the Mid-East, the crime in the streets of our cities?
This sense of helplessness is often transferred to our own lives, as well. Too often we think of ourselves as powerless slugs whose lives are shaped by forces over which we have no control. This can manifest itself in many ways:
We take the course of least resistance instead of consciously shaping our destiny. It’s inviting; it’s easy; it doesn’t demand that we hack a trail of our own and expose our trembling individuality.
We respond lemming-like to the tastes and fashions of the day instead of following our deepest beliefs and yearnings. We wonder, after all, can all these people be wrong?
We refuse to take risks that might expose our ignorance or leave us open to possible failure. It is much easier to assume a color that blends in with the wall than test the limits of our own possibilities in a world that might reject our best ideas.
No matter what it is that binds us, we must remember that we were not born to be enslaved. Feeling helpless before the larger problems of the world or the smaller problems of our lives, means that we have failed to grasp one of God’s brightest gifts to humanity—agency. It is the freedom for each individual to take responsibility for his life, his own actions’ and his own mistakes.
Too often we block our progress because we feel like victims of our circumstances. We blame others for our defeats or shortcomings. We wonder when “they” will do something to make us feel better. Yet freedom and potency come for each of us the day we assume responsibility for who we are. It comes the day we dare to dream our own dreams, back our own ideas and fearlessly fall on our faces with the courage to rise again. A glorious freedom comes the day we stop cowering before problems and move ahead to solve them with the conviction that we are people by whom and through whom the Lord can do a great work.
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May 06, 1984
Broadcast Number 2,855