Yesterday was our nation’s celebration of 231 years of independence.  Just yesterday, we set things on fire and blew airborne projectiles to smithereens in honor of a freedom provided over two centuries ago.  I fear however, that we risked everything from fingers to eye sockets without truly knowing what it was that we were cheering for.

I took a quick survey yesterday, asking a few questions to anyone I came across.  The questions all rounded up to one final question:  What is freedom?  I was sadly disappointed with the results.  Now, I learned in fourth grade that I could not define a word using the word itself or a derivative of the word, but apparently Mrs. Solomon (my fourth grade teacher) was a loony, because nine answers out of the ten responses explained to me that freedom was the state of being free and without confinement.  I was even more troubled when I sought assistance from dictionary.com and found that the first definition on that site is…well, take a look:

free-dom
-noun
1.   the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint

While I understand what the definition is explaining, I’m still astonished that modern day English experts wouldn’t at least try and slip this past a fourth grader.  I had to drop down two more definitions to find one that I found suitable to expound upon.  Shall we?

free-dom
-noun
3.   the power to determine action without restraint

Aha, now we’re cooking with fire.  You see, maybe my upbringing was a bit messed up, but I always learned the concept of freedom as an obligation.  As an American, I have the freedom, or shall I say the obligation to make decisions and act upon them.  If I choose not to act or even not to decide, I am still making a decision and acting upon that decision in my inactivity, though I may not even understand the decision I’m making.

I am tired (yes, I’m only 22 and I’m quite fed up) with people taking advantage of the lack of understanding Americans have about the word, Freedom.  I am tired of grown men not standing and removing their caps as the flag passes, as they are willfully showing all around them that they are not in full support of our country (remember the indecisive decision mentioned above).  My grand-daddy, a kind and loving man, would have given the back of my head a pelt-and-a-half if I didn’t remove my denim ball cap when I was six years old, and I can’t imagine what he would do today if he were around, and I hadn’t learned my lesson.  As an American, I am free to stand, united with 270 million, and celebrate our country’s independence.  Therefore, as an American, I am obligated to make a decision whether to salute our flag, honor our troops, and support our president, or decide to let the flag pass by, let the troops return home unacknowledged, and let the president just pass into history, until I agree more with what’s going on.

Please understand, I’m not saying to shut down criticism.  Lord knows, I’m one of the more critical people I know.  But believe in that criticism enough to stand for it.  Only then, when you are standing, not sitting, for something, are you really exercising your God-given freedom of will and choice.  And isn’t that where this whole freedom concept came from?  It didn’t happen 231 years ago, but rather at the beginning of time, when our freedom came with no war, but rather as a gift bestowed upon us by our Heavenly Father.

At the creation of the world, God gave mankind a choice, a freedom, an obligation to choose one way or another.  With the consumption of that forbidden fruit, the choice was made and we are living out the consequences today.  But God renewed that chance to make a choice.  That’s how good God is.  In that freedom, we now have the chance to choose Jesus over this falling world, and with that choice comes even less confinement than any government could free us from.

I don’t know where all this is going.  In fact, I need to reread everything here before I post it, but when are we going to take our freedom back?  We’ve allowed the media, the populous, and spiritually, the Devil to keep us in our seats indecisively deciding not to support or stand for anything.

All I know is, I’m tired of sitting down.