In 1849, Henry “Box” Brown (a US enslaved man from Virginia) folded himself into a wooden crate marked “dry goods,” and two friends shipped him from Richmond to Philadelphia. Brown was inside the box (3 x 2.5 x 2 feet) for the 26-hour trip, with three small holes cut for air. As abolitionists pulled Brown from the box, he sang a paraphrase of Psalm 40, expressing his hope in the God who promises freedom. “If you have never been deprived of your liberty, as I was,” Brown later wrote, “you cannot realize the power of that hope of freedom, which was to me indeed, an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast.”

Freedom is central to how God operates in our hearts and in our world. His wisdom leads to spiritual freedom, but false wisdom leads to oppression. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is,” Paul says, “there is freedom” from sin, death, and condemnation (2 Corinthians 3:17). When we listen to God and follow His ways, freedom results. Unfortunately the opposite is also true: When we ignore Him and resist His invitations, we become ensnared and confined. God liberates and transforms us by His Spirit (v. 18), but sin and rebellion traps us.

We sometimes believe that God limits and obstructs our possibilities and pleasure. But in truth, He’s the only one who can lead us into an expansive future, the only one who can guide us into genuine freedom.