I came across an article recently that resonated with me. It was ‘Choosing to be free is to choose to believe in God’ by Canon Niall Ahern and published in ‘The Sligo Champion’ on 1st August 2012.

The article is a wonderful reflection on the words of Kari Torjesen Malcolm a daughter of Missionary parents and latterly a Missionary herself.  She wrote very poignantly and painfully of her internment in a Chinese prisoner camp during the second world war and noted:

“God answered that prayer and spoke to me as I searched the bible for answers.  Gradually it dawned on me that there was just one thing that the enemy could not take from me.  They had bombed our home, killed my father, and put my mother, brothers and me into prison.  But the one thing they could not touch was my relationship with God.”…………. and when she realised this she wrote: “It was only then that I was able to pray the prayer that changed my life: ‘Lord, I am willing to stay in this prison for the rest of my life if only I may know you.’  At that moment I was free.”

The freedom to choose, no matter the circumstance, is a reality; the freedom to pursue a relationship with God is the ultimate expression of that reality. ‘The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps’ (Proverbs 16:9).