Today in A Year with the Church Fathers, we hear from St Ephrem the Syrian. He tells us that the very fact that we can argue that free will does not exist proves that free will exists.
We're told in Galatians 5:1 that we were set free to live in freedom. Not to enslave ourselves once more to vices, to sins, to the world and its cares. And yet, even with the free will so clearly demonstrated by St Ephrem, we still find ourselves clasping those shackles back on our ankles, don't we? We throw ourselves into the jail cell of our sin and slam the door. Why do we do this?
I'm pretty sure that 99% of the answer is fear. We fear the unknown. Even when we've been set free from a horrible life... we find ourselves returning to it because it is familiar. It's the known. And even though we KNOW that it's evil, and we KNOW that God is leading us to something so much better... it's hard sometimes not to find ourselves clinging to the familiar evil thing.
Let's pray for the will to live in freedom. Let's ask God to give us the strength and the courage to let go of our fear and our sin, and to live in the freedom for which He set us free.
Thank You, God, for continually breaking us free of those sins that so easily entangle.
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