“Freedom and liberty!” It sounds so free and liberating. Yet, it is how you manage your freedom and liberty that will determine whether your future is a better or more challenging one.
I am picturing the prisoner who has been behind bars for two decades. When he is released, he tastes freedom and liberty for the first time in a very long time. Can you imagine how much time he has spent dreaming of that day? Can you imagine how much time he has spent going through that day step-by-step? Oh, he has new hopes, dreams, and aspirations. His life will be better and he will never find himself behind bars ever again.
It is the cruel truth that once you are free, that new freedom and liberty to do as you plan and please will take on a new and further burden, or at least it ought to. The sad reality is that for various reasons, there are a good percentage of those who are free who cannot walk in their freedom with enough consistency to avoid returning to prison. Sadly, far too many, in their new found freedom, get “caught up” in something that is not conducive to a life worth emulating.
That is what I refer to as I think of the high cost of freedom. It is foolhardy for one to think that their freedom to do as they please will always yield pleasing results.
Over the past month, this issue of freedom and liberty to do as one pleases has certainly come to the forefront in Bermuda. In particular, I consider the sexually explicit videos that were circulating on the Internet. While it is quite true that those participating in these videos are free to do as they please and they have the liberty to continue doing so, one must stop to consider the possible repercussions.
When liberty brings you to a place of allowing your body parts to be abused, then that liberty is a lie.
When freedom frees you up to participate in behaviors that you would not desire your children to take part in, then your freedom is a false figment of your creative imagination.
“Private” actions ought to be private. Yet, the truth is that as you shape the minds of young adults to believe that they are free to be pawns and prostitutes, they become desensitized. Bermuda is not in for a positive future with any person who is desensitized about committing acts that degrade them. That mindset does not bode well.
Sadly, many think that private is private. Yet, the very fact that the private videos are made public speaks against that conclusion.
Real freedom and liberation uplifts a generation and a nation, and will not bring about degradation. You are worth more than any person can pay to pimp you. It is time to arise and live in the true sense of freedom and liberty of a life worth living.
By Dr Maria Seaman
Rev. Dr. Maria Seaman is the founder and Pastor of Shekinah Worship International Ministries (SWIM) at Shekinah Worship Centre, Bermuda under the spiritual covering of Bishop Jacqueline E. McCullough of The International Gathering of Beth Rapha. Dr. Seaman is an author of four books: The World of the Womb in God’s Plan for Man, Wombs II, A Voice Crying Out in a Wilderness Called Paradise, and Wombs III Expect the Unexpected: Leah’s Womb. She has also co-authored three books, and is the founder/producer of Shekinah’s twenty-four-hour cable channel, “SWIM TV”. Dr. Seaman firmly believes, “The safest place to be, is in the will of God.”
