I have a good friend who left the Air Force as a young officer because he had a string of bad bosses. He said he was tired of “working for the man,” so he got out and became his own boss, a financial advisor. Nothing wrong with that, but he wasn’t flying jets, the thing he really loved.

And of course, when you have your own business, everyone is your boss. 

My friend eventually went to fly for the airlines, and he’s been happy ever since. But it meant giving up the “freedom” of being his own boss.

When you take a fish out of water, is the fish more or less free? It’s less free, of course; it flips around in a panic. A fish can only be what it was meant to be in the water.

In a sense, this is the message of the entire Christian faith. It’s only when we are in a relationship with God that we are truly free to be ourselves.

This is what the Apostle Paul was trying to get across in his letter to the Galatians.

When we accept on faith what Jesus Christ did on the cross, we’re restored to a relationship with God, and God begins to restore the image of God in us. 

Like putting my friend back in the cockpit where he belonged.

Like putting us flipping fish back in the water.