Forgiveness brings freedom. I choke up when I think about the depth of forgiveness God has given me. I was a sinner, born into sin. I turned into someone who, for all intents and purposes, I probably shouldn’t have become. I was raised pretty well in a good, loving family – all of whom now are Christians. I was taught right from wrong.
My downward spiral began with curiosity. I was the good boy wondering what the other way of living was like, and the opportunity to find out came when I was on my own in a business that has its own unique, seductive nature. That was a bad combination.
It all started out as having fun. Like all sin, before I knew it, I was in so deep that I couldn’t remember how I had gotten there or how to get out. I could make a lot of excuses, but the truth is that I didn’t recognize my life as sinful. “Sin” wasn’t a word I would’ve used to describe what I was doing.
In my mind, it was my life and I wasn’t hurting anyone else. That was incorrect, of course, but that’s what I believed. I knew I was hurting myself, but because I didn’t like myself, it didn’t matter. My wife, my parents, my family, my friends – they were all hurt by what I was doing. I just didn’t recognize it. When people are in the middle of following a life of sin, I’m not sure they can. They need some type of external jolt to wake them up. My jolt came that Friday night on the couch, when my son crawled up on me and said, “Daddy’s tired.” For the first time, I realized my potential to hurt others.
Sometimes I hear that people reject God out of fear of what they would have to give up. When I look at my life back then through the perspective of my life now, how could I not want to give up that death-dealing way of living?
There are two types of freedom, the way I see it.
The first freedom – the one that some don’t want to give up – is the freedom that says, “God gave me a free will. I’m an American citizen, and I have the right to [fill in the blank].”
I’ll be honest: Becoming a Christian requires giving up some rights. It requires giving up some freedom. And that’s where the second type of freedom comes in.
The second kind of freedom – the one that only God can provide – brings the most liberating feeling a person can experience. I’ve lived under my freedom, and I’ve lived under God’s freedom, and there is no comparison.
My freedom could have cost me my life. It probably should have. I very easily could have been one of those wrestlers who overdosed in a lonely hotel room.
I never appreciated life until I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. Until then, I never understood the paradox that the key to living a life of freedom is to give up freedom.
There is freedom, I learned, in not thinking I can go out and do anything I want. I’ve given up some of my rights. It requires humility to serve a holy God. It takes choosing to obey without feeling like you’re a child.
The reward is freedom – freedom from the guilt and shame of knowing you weren’t the best you could be. It’s liberating to comprehend that nothing can separate me from the love of God. That’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card, but the forgiveness that God gives – one rooted in mercy and grace – makes you aware that you can’t keep doing what you did before. Actually, God’s forgiveness transforms you so that you don’t keep doing what you did before.
It’s an amazing feeling to know that the Creator of the universe is pleased with you.
Watch Shawn Michaels this Thursday on LIFE TODAY. Taken from Wrestling for My Life by Shawn Michaels. Copyright ©2014 by Shawn Michaels. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
