The other night my wife showed our kids a video of some Syrian refugees landing in Greece in over-crowded rafts. They’d left their country because of war and violence. Ironically, I was reading William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation at that very moment. In William’s journal, he describes the conditions leading up to the famous Mayflower voyage to America. The Puritans also felt the pressure of persecution and realized there was no relief except to leave.
So this was a teachable moment to explain what a refugee is and what that really means in terms of lifestyle changes and choices. To decide to leave what you know out of fear of loss of your property or your life forces you to venture off into unknowns and vulnerabilities. Trying to avoid the political muddle tied to the story of Syrian refugees, I took the opportunity to further explain how the Syrians both compare and contrast to the Pilgrims. But even beyond either of these groups, I wanted my children to understand how as believers we are called to be like refugees, sojourners, aliens, or pilgrims.
1 Peter 2:11-12, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.”
Peter urged early Christians to live with that same “refugee” mentality. Live like you don’t belong here. Then use that understandably awkward and even scary position in life to demonstrate where your confidence really lies.
The real war going on isn’t within the borders of nations, but within ourselves. Wars are fought (to some degree) for freedom. Freedom to own a particular piece of land, freedom to use your money or your talents as you wish, etc. Sin steals our potential and our freedoms, which is one reason it’s so important to flee from those things that steal our potential in God.
Paul says in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” That’s our potential, to be a tool for God; which in turn reaps a harvest beyond understanding.
Paul told the Romans in Romans 6:17-18, “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.”
Where will the refugees end up? Is there a place that will bring them peace? The reality is that the victory they’re seeking doesn’t come in the form of a title deed for property, or in a flag, or in anything you can put in the bank. The real victory is something bigger—it’s in God, the creator of all things.
1 Corinthians 15:57-58, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”
That was a lesson the Pilgrims would soon learn as well. The freedom they
sought wasn’t in America, but in the freedom to fully surrender to Christ and His guidance. We were created for a purpose, and that purpose is to glorify God. Peter explains that through our “good deeds, as they observe them” that is when others see what real freedom is and that’s when God is glorified.
Nelson Mandela said just months before his release from prison, “The only prison that takes away a man’s freedom is the one that does not allow that man to dream.” God has given us something more than a dream; it’s a promise. To have that ability to live for that promise makes us freer than anyone on the planet.
This Thanksgiving, pay special attention to the opportunities around you to share what makes you free.
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