I don’t know about you, but sometimes I lock myself into situations before they even happen. I write my story believing that is the only way it will turn out – good or bad. You can imagine how frustrating life can be. I think this is true for many people. We like to control our lives, or at least we fool ourselves into thinking we can, and so we try. The reality is, it hinders the freedom we have in Christ, therefore limiting our true potential.

I’ve never been into sports. I have been content to sit in the bleachers and watch the game play  without fully understanding how it all works. I enjoy it just the same. Recently I was introduced to the concept of being a “free agent.”

In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with any club or franchise; i.e., not under contract to any specific team.

I love the concept, and I’m even more intrigued how it plays into sports. I would think that a free agent would be at risk for having a lesser team mentality knowing that they are free to go at any time. I would also think it would be difficult for those players supporting that free agent for the same reason. And yet, it seems to work. That mentality doesn’t seem to come into play the way I think it would, and sit appears to help the game as a whole.

Writing my own story locks me into a team, so to speak. Not only am I closed off from new experiences, I limit my actions, my attitude and am I’m at risk of detrimental self-fulfilling prophecies instead of having the freedom that I was given in Christ.

When I consider myself a free agent in this world, I have the freedom to explore, the freedom to discover, and the freedom to be led by God’s Spirit in His time. When I consider myself to be a free agent, faith grows. Faith in my current circumstances. Faith in my team. Faith in future teams. Faith in living out my full potential. Faith in God and His abilities.

Galatians 5:1 speaks to being a free agent in Christ beautifully.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

There is a short story called “The Black Door.” It is about a spy who is captured and sentenced to death by a warlord. The spy is given a choice – face death by firing squad or face the unknown on the other side of the Black Door. The spy imagines the worst possible torture through the Black Door and so he chooses the firing squad and moments later he is shot to death. The warlord mocks him for choosing the firing squad over the unknown. His aid asks what lies beyond the Black Door. “Freedom,” says the warlord, “and I’ve known very few men brave enough to take it.”

You and I are the spy. Satan is the warlord, instilling fear and planting seeds of doubt. The Black Door is the illusion Satan casts in our world when he attempts to block out the light and hope of Jesus and all the freedom that comes with faith in Him. It is fairly easy to see in this story, but some of us may live out that captivity daily.

When I write my story and I anticipate what I think the outcome will be, I keep myself captive behind a door that leads to freedom. I respond to life’s challenges out of fear and carry burdens that are unnecessary. I lock myself out of all the possibilities that God has for me. I put a timeline on His works and a limit to what He can accomplish in and through me.

If you don’t know Jesus, I would love it if you would get to know Him. Every believer in Jesus Christ is a free agent. God tells us this over and over again:

2 Corinthians 3:17
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

Psalm 119:45
“I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.”

Romans 8:20-21
“For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.”

We who are free agents are called to live differently, speak differently, behave differently, respond differently. I would dare say it goes beyond counter cultural. This world, at least in our society, leads us to believe there is a designated plan to follow:

Grow up
Go to school
Figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life
Graduate high school
Go to college
Get a degree
Find a career
Get married
Buy a house
Have kids
Find a better job
Buy nicer things
Have more kids
Buy a bigger house
Travel
Save for a comfortable retirement
Send the kids to college
Downsize
Retire
Watch the scenario play out with the next generation

Sound familiar? That’s an awful lot of pressure and expectations to live up to. I’ve known people – myself included – who have missed at least one of those steps and it can leave you lost. Life suddenly doesn’t fit into that societal box! If we’re honest when we look back, we realize that “box” was really stressful to keep in tact anyway.

What if you reimagined your life, starting right now. What if you dreamed the biggest dream and believed it was possible? What if you lived without fear of the unknown? What if every hurdle, every failure was just one step closer to the best possible life you can have? The only thing holding us back from living our lives to their fullest potential is us. We are free. We must believe that; must trust God through the unknown and step out in faith to live fully as free agents.