No Need for Wild Oats

The twinkle in her eye’s spoke a silent message. There was something new there; something I had never seen in the past five years of knowing this beautiful nineteen year-old gal. Jo had just returned from spending nine months in the Caribbean and Venezuela, spreading the incredible news of the matchless love of Jesus. As Jo spoke, I heard her use one word over and over and over again…freedom.

Coming right out of high school, freedom is the one thing that young people cannot grasp fast enough. They eagerly do all they can to get out from under the wings of their parents and take off running to find their own. Some soar, but far too many flop. Yet here was this young person before me speaking of freedom, but speaking of a different kind of freedom. Freedom in Christ. Freedom to find His life for her. Freedom to worship, dance, pray, laugh and love with Him. THIS is the freedom our children were created for.

If I have ever struggled with fear, it is the fear that my own children would only scratch the surface of the life and love that Jesus offers them. For all of their lives, I have prayed that they would fall passionately in love with Him and as result that they would forego the so called “sowing their wild oats” stage. When I have shared this dream with others, I have come up against much unbelief. Our culture says this is a normal part of growing up; of finding themselves and freedom. But yesterday I had a new enlightenment. Yes…they were meant to find freedom. Yes…they were meant to find out who they are. But, they were meant to find all of that IN HIM! He is the giver of true freedom. He is the one who created them; who better to help them find themselves! Freedom – freedom from sin, freedom from the bondage that this culture offers as life, freedom from our own weaknesses and short comings – all this and more is the freedom that He offers!

Galatians 5:1 shares this incredibly great news “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Christ has set us free so that we can walk – every day – in the true freedom He offers.

Lord, not only do we pray for this freedom for our children, refusing to believe the lies that the world offers us that our children have to “sow their wild oats” in order to know you, but we also pray that we ourselves would walk in the complete freedom that only you can give!

Lynn

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