Riding the Wave of Self-Restraint

Independence Day has passed and fireworks have ceased to explode in the sky. Yet, as I surfed last week in very warm water and on very small waves, I continued to think about freedom. 

 

There is an immense amount of freedom in surfing. Which board to ride. Which wave to catch. What style you choose to embody while gliding on the water. And then, there’s the added freedom of whether to take someone else’s wave.  

 

When the waves are not good and a decent set rolls through, it’s easy to fall prey to the temptation of stealing a wave from someone — cutting them off or dropping in on them as they cruise down the line. It’s equally difficult on a terrific day when you see an extremely perfect wave that you desperately want but it is destined for someone else. It takes restraint to not do the wrong thing and “snake” the person (take their wave). 

 

Freedom is not merely the right to do as you please. Freedom is also the liberty to do as you ought. To some degree, I now find this missing in our culture. Freedom has slipped into uncontrolled desire and uninhibited liberty. 

 

If we look at our Constitution and especially the Bill Rights, what we find, in part, is that freedom does not include the liberty to do anything we want. Freedom requires sacrifice. Freedom requires that we think of others even as we think of ourselves. From a Christian theological perspective, personal liberty must, at times, take a back seat to loving our neighbor.

 

Indeed, when a free society no longer values the twin sisters of discernment and restraint, freedom is lost in a sea of licentiousness and gluttony. 

 

I will not pretend to know the good and bad of all moral choices. In our postmodern culture, the proper use of freedom is debated. There is no longer a fixed moral custom for our citizenry. Whether this is an asset or liability to freedom is an entirely different argument. 

 

However, what I will venture a judgment upon is gluttony, which is a misuse of liberty. It’s not an overstatement to say that we have become, to a significant degree, a nation of self-serving gluttons. We have come to misunderstand freedom as the liberty to do what we want and have what we want — not necessarily to do what we ought. 

  

We may continue to be the most ostensibly religious nation in the West, but I now wonder what our religious convictions amount to. Somewhere along the way, we have come to believe that freedom is equivalent to unmitigated self-indulgence, whether that’s personal rights or consumption of goods.

 

Freedom is not found in a doctrine of unquestionable personal choice but often in self-giving acts of restraint for the good of someone else.