Freedom!
By Vickey Pahnke-Taylor

Having recently celebrated the Fourth of July (or Independence Day) in the U.S.A., thoughts and conversations have been centered around the blessings of freedom.  Freedom! The very word seems to allow us to breathe more deeply and smile more broadly.

I found an interesting comment made by President Boyd K. Packer in 1971, at B.Y.U.

“Obedience — that which God will never take by force — he will accept when freely given.  And he will then return to you freedom that you can hardly dream of — the freedom to feel and to know, the freedom to do, and the freedom to be, at least  a thousand-fold more than we offer him. Strangely enough, the key to freedom is obedience.”

What a beautiful teaching!  Obedience, the first law of heaven, seems to be the key to enjoying the freedoms for which we yearn. 

The development and growth curves of the teen years sometimes create a desire to move away from the “old time” method of living, or the established ways of the parents. Thus, detours are taken and — in the name of ‘individuality’ — courses are chosen for dress, conversation and behavior that seem to make one “more free.”  Free to “say whatever I want to say,” to “be who I am,” or to “march to my own drummer.”  How many times I have watched in sadness as those choices, made in the name of personal freedom, bind up people so that they are hostage to habits that they cannot seem to break.  Freedom?  Hardly.  The course chosen holds them prisoner.  They are no longer “free” at all! 

Nicotine
Drugs
Sex
Alcohol
Pornography
Debt

These and so many other worldly, dark habits exert a form of control that take away the very freedoms that person sought to find.  Ironically, in the safety of wise choices based upon obedience to God’s laws, they could have had all the personal freedoms they ever wanted.

Nevertheless, our Father in Heaven has given us the right to choose for ourselves. A divine right given us is the opportunity to learn, to grow, to improve, and to preserve our personal freedoms.  The freedom to choose for ourselves.

President David O. McKay once taught, “Among the immediate obligations and duties resting upon members of the Church today, and one of the most urgent and pressing for attention and action of all liberty-loving people, is the preservation of individual liberty.  Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give” (Conference Report, April 1950).

When I think of the Title of Liberty from the Book of Mormon, I marvel at their steadfastness in working for freedom and goodness.  How many times do I take for granted the blessings afforded me because of their conviction?  How much do I take for granted as a citizen of the U.S.A., and of the world?  And how much do I take for granted as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

We each have so many opportunities to learn what is right; to choose wisely.  We have the prospect of reaping a great harvest of blessings as we carefully learn to obey.  Our freedoms increase because our ability to recognize truth increases.  Father in Heaven can give us more because we are ready to accept it.  This is in preparation for our opportunity to accept “all that the Father hath” once we have proven fit for the eternal blessings of exaltation.  This, young brothers and sisters, is freedom.