1More Series - Freedom Pt 4

Today I think I'll conclude my series on freedom. I'll by no means wrap up the personal sovereignty thread that will undoubtedly weave through this blog in the future, but life is settling down for us now and it's time to stop philosophizing and put rubber to road. But while our heads are still in the stars...

Last week I talked about a couple of near-death experiences I had in the music industry. There were many adventures on the road in tight clothing chasing dangling carrots. In a nutshell, there was one simple question that I asked myself which kept me from signing my name to legal documents:

"What can these people do for me that I can't do for myself?"

The answer? Not much. They can buy you a hell of a dinner, to be sure. But after the smoke clears, what you want is a good looking and sounding record and a team to promote that record. None of these things are out of the reach of the average creative person with, I'll relent, copious amounts of elbow greese. I walked away from my musical career having learned many things, but as concerns freedom, I learned that the more you depend on others for something you can do yourself, the less free you are.

And you guessed right, I did become a bit of a control freak. In fact, I learned some more hard lessons in my subsequent career recovering from this over-correction. I was a worship pastor of a large suburban church, coaching between 20-60 volunteer leaders for various projects. It was only when I again began to trust people to share my work that my dapartment became fruitful and my family enjoyed more of my presence at home. But as I assigned more and more tasks to the people around me, I understood that I was not giving in to the dependence that I was almost victim to in the music industry. Though I had to ultimately answer for mistakes made by my subordinates, I could at any time rescind the authority I'd abdicated. And here lies the lesson I learned:

The difference between dependence and delegation is in where the authority lies.

And I really don't have much more than that to end with. No stories of my childhood, no poetic imagery to dress up what I've been talking about. The important things to remember about freedom are quite simple, and it's important in all situations to be aware of who has the authority. This awareness will only come when we are unemotional, and perhaps a bit well-informed. Guilt and ignorance are easy traveling companions on the road to slavery.

Okay, you got me, one story. My wife was working with some children a couple years ago and she asked them where spaghetti comes from. They grew quiet, obviously thinking hard. One boy spoke up and cautiously said, "Krogers".

And that's really why I do this. I had once bought into the American dream where debt is expected of you and spaghetti comes from Kroger. When I lost that ministry job, I was very grateful that I had paid off our debt and was growing our own food in the back yard. Had I still been dependent on credit cards and Kroger I'm not sure what we would have done...but I'm not the only one around here who's realizing the dangers of dependence and hopefully some of you can learn some stuff here. Plus, have you had home-made spaghetti with a salad from your back yard? Freedom tastes good.