Before you come to college you hear the word "freedom" mentioned about 720 times (at least, I did), and it never really disappears once you get there.

Let's start with the definition of freedom. it is defined as "the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint." Hmm... so maybe this whole moving away thing doesn't sound too bad now, does it? You won't have parents constantly on you about chores or grades or life in general. Sounds even better right? Best part: you can run at night without being told it's too dangerous (sorry mom still love you).

There are so many problems with that. You can choose to go to classes or not: failing or passing. You can choose to go to church or not: growing spiritually or spiritually dying. You can choose what you want to buy when you want to buy it: savings or broke college kid. You can choose when to study or when not to study: again passing or failing. You can choose your friends, your parents have no say so: bad influences or accountability partners. The list goes on and on, but one very important one is you can choose who you want to date. With your parents miles away, you can lie to them about everything that is going on here and they would never know and way too many people take advantage of that.

Since I've gotten here, I have seen way too many people fall into this sick darkness where they abuse freedom. No parents? Okay, let's party every night! Let's have co-ed sleepovers! Let's drink ourselves to death! Let's sleep all day and not go to class! Church? Oh, yeah, that is that place back home where my parents dragged me every Sunday. Relationship with God? Eh – I'll wait until I graduate and settle down. He'll be there waiting for me.

Those same people turn into the people who get married, have kids, live their life, and expect to find Jesus when they are on their death bed. "Eh, he can wait. This is my life. I want to live it how I want to live it." Freedom can be a scary thing, even out of college.

However, freedom with Jesus is a beautiful thing. 2 Corinthians 3:17 says "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." We get so caught up in the world of sin that we think being a follower of Jesus is boring. There are rules and regulations, and you don't even get to choose your own life, says the world. And we listen to them. How dare we.

Jesus gives us free will to follow him or not, to choose his way or the world's. It's hard to believe that his plan is better than what we have planned for ourselves but guess what? We are human. Therefore, we have human minds, not God's. He's at the end of our future - he sees everything that goes on and he puts us on the path that he sees will be rewarding for us.

His ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are better than our thoughts. Choose freedom in Jesus and you'll realize just how free you really are.