I’m writing this from central North Carolina, where I’ve been spending time being a grandfather. The little people whose arrival caused my name to change from “Daddy” to “Sonny” include my granddaughter (who turned two in February and who already knows every word to every princess song in the Disney catalog), and my brand-new grandson, who is all of ten days old. As I was watching my son and daughter-in-law navigate the chaos of parenting two little ones, singing along with “I Have a Dream”, and holding my newborn grandson’s tiny hand, I was hit with the idea of freedom.

I’m not referring to the freedom that seventh graders are introduced to in civics class, even though that matters a great deal. I was hit with what has become the expected freedom that I have to be in a different state for a couple of days, to be a grandfather, to see my granddaughter’s face light up when I make her a bowl of ice cream that makes it seem like ice cream is a food group (I’m committed to doing the long-term research on this), and to sit quietly next to my grandson while he sleeps, thinking about the world he will experience.

This is the freedom that those in our country’s military have fought for, bled for, and in too many cases, died for.

The reality is that freedom is expensive. Someone paid for our future with theirs. That’s incredibly costly.

Our nation’s founders understood this deeply. For example, John Jay wrote, “No power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent.” This wasn’t a position cultivated in theory – Jay recognized that freedom was something that had to be actively preserved, not something we expect to inherit without having some skin in the game. While John Jay was talking about property rights, there’s a deeper principle at work – freedom requires sacrifice from those who are willing to stand watch while everyone else sleeps.

These days, we largely enjoy lives that are unthreatening. That leaves us emotional space to complain about traffic and argue about whether pineapple belongs on pizza (it absolutely does, but I respect your wrong opinion). We have the luxury of trivial concerns because someone else is bearing the weight of ensuring our safety.

There’s a paradox in the Bible that addresses this. The Apostle Peter wrote, Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 1 Peter 2:16, CSB.

We live that paradox as followers of Jesus who live in the United States of America. We might think that freedom means being able to do whatever we want, but Peter reminds us that true freedom isn’t emancipation from everything. Instead, it’s the freedom for something. It’s the freedom to serve a purpose larger than ourselves. True freedom, according to the New Testament, means that there is freedom to do what is right^.

Service members who fought and died for our freedoms understood this. They willingly gave up the freedom to be anywhere else because they knew that freedom requires guardians. They voluntarily forfeited their own liberty to secure ours

Sacrifice isn’t loss, it’s a choice. Actually, it’s love that has been expressed. As we honor those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom, we acknowledge that their sacrifice didn’t just purchase our geographic or political freedoms, but also our ability to pursue everything that makes life worth living.

I’ve become convinced that there’s something about the American spirit we need to recover. Of course we’ve missed the mark a few times over the last 250 years, so we can leave those missteps in the past, but I believe that we will be better today if we realign ourselves with the ideas of gratitude and hopeful optimism for the future.

Those in generations before us understood something about freedom at a deeper level because many of them had physically fought for it. Those who were able to come home were builders. They planted trees in their yards knowing they’d sit in the shade of them twenty years later. They invested in their churches and communities. They believed America’s best days were ahead, even when immediate circumstances seemed tumultuous. They expressed gratitude in how they treated their neighbors and cared for those in need.

Holding my ten-day-old grandson, I find myself hoping for the same things every parent and grandparent wants – freedom for the people I love to hear, understand, and practice the teachings of Jesus. I pray that these little guys grow up in freedom, free to follow Jesus with the entirety of their lives.

Because today is Memorial Day, although I hope this feeling never escapes me, I'm deeply grateful that this hope isn’t out of reach. It’s attainable because of the sacrifice of those who served and continues to be so because there are those who are still standing watch. 

So let’s be grateful. In my case, the freedom to be a grandfather, to watch a two-year-old discover the world, to hold a newborn baby and smile as I think about his future and dream about his future – these are not rights. They’re gifts, purchased at great cost.

To those who have lost a family member in service to our country, may God bless you with comfort. For those who serve, thank you. For the rest of us, let’s live in a way that honors the sacrifice of those who lost their lives for our freedom. Believe in and work for a better tomorrow. Teach the next generation what freedom actually costs and what it’s worth.

Because real freedom is worth all of it.