Real Freedom, Real Security

I recently read a quote that said,in effect, that "Nowhere is freedom held so sacred than in the hands that are holding it for the very first time".

For whatever reason when I read this I flashed back not quite twenty years ago to a street in Kiev, Ukraine. I was on a mission trip and it was our day off to see the beautiful, old city. Being obviously not local we sometimes were approached by beggers and one particular lady I'll never forget. She was elderly and came up to me for some reason and started on in an angry voice. Even though she was speaking in Ukrainian I could tell she was likely cursing me out. Our translators told her to buzz off and, after a bit, she did. It took awhile to talk our translator, Lyuda, (we joked that her last name was Kriss. Say it out loud if you don't get it) into telling us what the old lady had said. Roughly translated the babushka was angry at the hardship that Ukraines newfound independence had brought to her people. She was right. Life has gone from difficult to downright unpredictably difficult since Independence was declared in 1991. Teachers (who were highly valued and well paid) hadn't received a paycheck from the government in months. Many had resorted to bartering from their gardens to get necessities. People removed their windshield wipers so they wouldn't get stolen, and only replaced them when it rained.
These people had come from communism to the birth (of a sort) of freedom. Many were excited but many were fearful. From a communist/ socialist government you get a weak form of security at the price of freedom. Some people, like this old lady, had grown  accustomed to that security and lived in fear of the dangers of freedom.

Sadly there are many like that even in this country. They are like Red in The Shawshank Redemption, but without the excuse of already being imprisoned and institutionalized. And they really do prefer a secular legalism as a security over spiritual freedom. Sin blinds. It blinds so completely that it views the state to be higher than God. The "god" state provides a false security, and it provides new definitions, and if those definitions can be twisted it can provide "redemption" redefined. It can give the nod to perversion, approval of pre-natal murder, and the atta-boy to legalized thievery.
Simply put when people choose not to be a slave to Christ, whose burden is light, they will choose the oppressive burden of anything else. Freedom is scary when there are no Godly parameters to control it. But just as terrible is a government with no Godly borders. The founding fathers of this nation understood that. That is the reason we were such a great nation. People that govern themselves in accordance with the freedoms given in Scripture will experience a freedom not seen in all of history.

Ben Franklin nearly had it when he said " He who would trade essential liberty to obtain a little security deserves neither and will lose both". I  suggest that when our security and liberty are found in our Creator no government can take those away. And a government that understands this and incorporates it into their form of government will prosper.