Should we be amazed that Americans willingly sell their freedom for a measly price? Yet, many Americans eagerly swipe their slave card simply because they are impatient, to impress others or to make themselves feel good. Even Hebrew slaves gained more when forfeiting their liberty.

With red, white and blue flapping in the breeze above our heads while echoes about this being the land of opportunity still ringing in our ears, we often might wonder why any ancient Hebrew slave would have willingly rejected his right to go free. Scripture offered a powerful reason.

If the slave had been given a wife and she had bore him children, after the seventh year he could go free but his wife and children could not. However, this newly emancipated individual could chose, out of love for his family, to perpetually sacrifice his independence in order to remain with them (Exodus 21:2-6).

What is more difficult to fathom involves Americans willingly selling their independence merely to stimulate temporary feelings of self-worth or because they are too impatient to wait. Yet, according to the principle in Proverbs 22:7 (“the borrower is slave to the lender”), that is the price for swiping your credit card when you can not pay the bill in full.

During this holiday season, liberty will once again be undervalued as modern slavery thrives. For an embarrassingly small value, Americans will make a Faustian bargain trading their future time and work in order to satisfy an immediate desire. Long after the borrowed amount has been repaid, they will continue to toil enabling their masters to reap their own dreams at the expense of slave sweat.

–Barry Newton @ www.forthright.net