Your Day Has Arrived

In pro sports, there is a steady stream of trade talk, but it escalates during the off-season and even more intensely if a superstar like LeBron James is no longer under contract to their team and can shop for a new agreement with other teams. Such a player is called a “free agent.”

In ancient Rome, the law set the age of 14 as the time at which the son came of age and became a free agent. Paul the apostle referenced Roman law in his explanation of the Gospel:

Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set. And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world. But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.  God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. (Galatians 4)

In a way similar to free agency in sports and Rome, societies are aspiring to free agency as their way of being. This desire is a sign of maturity. We do not want to be restrained by unnecessary rules or laws. As with dominant fathers, evolution threatens those who want to keep us under management. That attitude not only tries to control us but also tries to withhold what we are entitled to in the way of estate/inheritance. They may tell you that we’d only have chaos if we don’t look first to the Ten Commandments or the Constitution, but it’s a sure sign of immaturity if our first consideration is “the rules.”

In today’s yet-to-be-developed economies, regulation may be more needed for the unprincipled and for corporations, but the day will come when they, too, will give way to their conscience and that of their designers.

As we get older, we may begin to think more for ourselves. This is true for humans in the 21st century who are experiencing the Great Collective Coming of Age. While we continue to face resistance from legalists who are terrified when they see us questioning traditions, still we flourish. The more we grow, the less afraid we are of the new and unexplored.

We are not being disloyal to our legacy. Instead, we are fulfilling the prayers of the ancestors who always identified rules and laws that were confining and knew that one day we would be free. They were prescient. They were prophetic. Some of them paid a dear price to talk of liberation, but you are their reward.

Because you are a free agent.

 

 

 

 

 

Brittney Griner

we love you.

Brittney Griner we love you.