Snowboard for Freedom!!

Among other things, one of my favorite feelings of freedom is speeding down a mountain of fresh powder.  There is a feeling of being invincible with the cold air rushing past you and the weightless feeling as you fly over rises in the snow and carve back and forth in the powder.  Thinking quickly but staying relaxed is when I'm most successful on the slopes.  It took me many hours to be able to handle the more advanced runs.  There were many bruises and a few concussions.  On one occasion I had more confidence in myself than I should have had.  I was racing my good friend and we were approaching a bridge we were supposed to go under.  The next thing I know I'm laying on my back and he is hitting me across the face to get me to wake up.  I had caught edge and slammed into the snow which knocked me out.  It was a painful lesson to learn.

Agency (aka 'free will') is our ability to make choices.  Just like I had the choice to overstep my bounds, each of us get to choose what we will do in our lives.  There are laws in heaven that are unchangable.  When we use our agency to choose to comply with the laws we gain more freedom to continue to act as we will.   Because I had put in the practice, I eventually was free to snow board down the more advanced runs.  Another example I love is the piano.  Because a person complies with the instructions to practice they eventually are free to play just about anything they want.  Those of us who choose not to comply with those laws are not free to sit down and produce beautiful music, however, the choice is ours. Every choice we make can be placed in one of two categories, to follow Christ or Satan.  We choose who we follow each day.  May each of us choose to follow Christ and save ourselves the spiritual concussions and free ourselves spiritually to play beautiful music.  By choosing Christ, we choose freedom.