Throughout history wars have been fought for freedom.

Freedom has never been won by singing or sitting.  Even today, whether you know it or not, we are still fighting for freedom.  Americans are becoming more cognizant of our constitutional rights, because we are always at risk of our rights being violated.

Yet, many of us choose to be in bondage in our relationships.  We choose to be in bondage in our mental faculties, in our emotions, in our bodies, and even in some religious sectors.  We are choosing to be in bondage on free soil.

The soil we walk on contains the blood of our ancestors and fore fathers, who fought, bled and died for our freedom, but we choose to be bound?  As the fight for freedom continues, yes, as it continues, on a global scale and even here in America, where the land of the free dwells, for some reason some of us are not free in our own homes, in our own relationships, marriages, and even in our own minds.

Some of us are held captive in unhappy marriages, bound emotionally by unhappiness in the very place we lay our head.  Home should be where the heart is.  Instead, home is for some a place of bondage.

We are denied access to the love we so rightly deserve, by being in a loveless marriage or a loveless relationship.  Denied of enjoying sexual abundance in its uninhibited sense.  We are denied the very things that are relationally necessary.  Happiness is a freedom we so deserve, yet because of our fears for the outcome of leaving, we remain hostage, rather than choose the mental and emotional land of relational freedom.  We choose bondage, yet we walk on free soil?

Do not be misled.  You are not free if you are sexually inhibited.  You are not free if your religion suppresses you.  You are not free if you are a victim to another human being.  You are not free if you are in an unhappy relationship.  In such cases you gain freedom by pursuing a happiness that our fore fathers fought for on the soil we walk on.

The fight for freedom was won by blood, yet we do not have the courage to keep it?  We are giving away our freedoms without a fight?

Why is freedom a problem in our lives?  I ask for anyone around the world who is enslaved, and even for those of us, who in our daily lives choose to be bound by someone we love or someone we trust to have our best interest at heart. I ask this question for my brothers, who are mentally neutered, emasculated, mentally abused and humiliated.  I ask for my sisters who are mentally, emotionally, physically abused and suppressed.

Being born should come with responsibility, but freedom should be a birthright we refuse to relinquish, yet we do so— on a daily basis.

Why must we fight for freedom at all?  Why is freedom on the table at all? It is for one reason and one reason only.

Power.

Power is the root of the problem when freedom is at stake.  Power is the culprit.  It is either subtle or blatantly obvious, and it resides in many facets of our lives more than we care to realize.  Power via the ability to control or manipulate another person runs on many levels— from the rapist, to the powers that rule certain facets of the world.

For example, let’s look at religion.  Some of them suppresses women.  Let me get this straight.  We have the right to freedom of religion, yet some religions suppress women?  What the hell are we doing?  We are in the land of the free, and are free— to not be free?

The one who abuses is exerting an element of power to victimize another person.  The victim is who?  It is the person who allows the abuser to abuse.  We live in the land of the free and choose to be in bondage on free land?

Some groups consider themselves to be supreme over another.  This might not be a bad thing, but to exert power to prove it?  Isn’t the belief enough?  Or is the need for exerting power the only way to really believe the concept of supremacy?  Is the exertion of control and manipulation the way to purport and support the supremacy belief?  Down through history it has been evident that supremacy has been unearned through deception, death and thievery.

Others have been a victim of someone who had position in their lives, wearing the face of a teacher, coach, tutor, friend, family member, and the like, using power in their position to violate the freedom of innocence and youth.  The freedom of sexuality has been destroyed through rape and molestation.

The hardest battles and wars for freedom have been fought.  We’ve read and heard about them.  They were extremely confrontational and bloody.  Today’s violation of freedom is more subtle, but just as imposing.  It is more intricate and very personal in various forms in our lives.  All we need is a “no,” some courage, and back bone to honor the blood of those who have died for our freedom.

There should be nothing— whether subtle, imposing, relational, spiritual, emotional, mental, and yes, even illusional that we will allow to take away or suppress any of our freedoms.

All freedom violating forces have relegated us to the victim status in times of vulnerability like youth, needing to be taught, loved, or even needing to be led.  We are bound in our relationships and marriages because of our vulnerability to be loved.  Within this vulnerability, our very freedom is being stripped away, because we have chosen the wrong person to be with.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is what we should be living.  Others have died to ensure we live this way.  We can be free not only physically, but mentally, emotionally, behaviorally (in the decency of the word) and spiritually.  Never forget that freedom is our birthright— and no man, or force on earth, or in the stratosphere above can take it.