Celebrate Freedom
I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July celebration! How exciting it was to celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday. I love my native country and am grateful for the freedom I enjoy. Today’s post includes photos from two special celebrations as well as some inspirational quotes about freedom.
I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out [God’s] precepts.
Psalm 119:45 (NIV)
As both a person of faith and a U.S. citizen, I believe freedom is a very important concept for each of us to consider carefully.
For the last 20 years, our Independence Day holiday begins on July 3rd with a wonderful celebration at Sunup Bay Resort on the southern tip of Lake Coeur d’Alene where our son-in-law’s family have a vacation home. Truly, it is one of my very favorite events each summer.
Then, more recently, on the Saturday closest to the 4th, we have also been invited to join family for a great fireworks display at McDonald’s Resort in Bayview, Idaho, which is located on the southern end of Lake Pend Oreille, and where Ron’s nephew keeps his wooden boat.
The Olson family’s “freedom float” at the Sunup Bay July 3rd parade.
Watching children, especially my grandkids, causes me to not only consider but pray for a continuation of freedom in our country as well as for future generations throughout the world. President Ronald Reagan's most famous freedom quote is sobering:
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."
"A clean heart is a free heart. A free heart can love Christ with an undivided love in chastity, convinced that nothing and nobody will separate it from his love."
Mother Teresa
It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
Galatians 5:13-15 (MSG)
"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
"If freedom is to survive and prosper, it will require the sacrifice, the effort and the thoughtful attention of every citizen."
President John F. Kennedy
"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."
Nelson Mandela
"If freedom is to survive and prosper, it will require the sacrifice, the effort and the thoughtful attention of every citizen."
President John F. Kennedy
“Being democratic is not enough … countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.”
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
The sunset at Bayview was as spectacular as the fireworks.
"… when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'"
From Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech
Blessings on your journey,
