When I first heard of Freedom Prayer, I was intrigued but nervous. What would this be like? Could I be one of those people who is really connected to God? I had always assumed that I just didn’t have “it.” With “it” being whatever helped those other “Spiritual” people connect to God. How I envied them but also feared it.
I’ve spent my life feeling like I might go to hell, despite being baptized not once, but twice. My chance at heaven was tied up in my perfectionism – if I could do life “right,” I believed that God promised me heaven. However, doing it “right” was like walking a tightrope every day. Yet, I was still distant from God and unsure. So, I overcame my anxiety and scheduled a Freedom Prayer time.
I thought my prayer time was amazing, like nothing I had ever experienced before. I was asking God why I was scared of Him, and he was showing me times in my past that were related to my fear, times in my life where I was afraid of other authority figures. There were definitely periods of the prayer time that were hard; I had to let go and forgive someone with whom I had been angry for years. I remembered that I physically wiggled in my chair for the longest time as I wrangled with whether I could let go my righteous indignation and give it to Jesus. In that place, a peace, comfort, and stillness settled over me like I had never felt before. When I was in that moment, the sense that I got, besides the peace and contentment, was Romans 8:38-39; it was like it became truth. That nothing could separate me from the love of Jesus. It wasn’t so much a feeling, or not a feeling only, but a fact, like I would never doubt that again. He showed me that He loved me no matter what, no matter what I did or didn’t do.
Another thing that I’ve noticed is that the Bible seems to be making more sense. I had really doubted messages of salvation, heaven, and any security. Since my prayer time, the Bible feels more personal and for some reason, more clear to me. It’s like it has come alive. I truly feel like God has written it to me. I have also noticed that my worship time is more sincere. Instead of coming to God in fear, I come with connection and knowledge that He loves me. Since my prayer time, worship has brought me to tears from gratitude and love and that had only happened from fear in the past. My Freedom Prayer time produced things that I have wanted for years, and makes me want to do my Christian life from the place of love and relationship now.