Real Freedom vs. Wishful Thinking

Today being Monday, I was at the prison again this afternoon. Once inside at the meeting room, I had to wait a few minutes before the prisoners were brought downstairs, so I stood at a window and looked out through the bars into the court yard. There, on the wall opposite where I was, my attention was again drawn to a mural painted by some of the inmates. I've seen it many times over the past couple of years that it's been there, but today I thought again on what it represents. Other areas of the wall have been decorated with designs of various geometric shapes, but this one section is very artistic. The artist(s) painted a large, gaping "hole" in the wall, complete with broken bars, through which one "looks out" to an open sea that stretches to the horizon in the far distance.

It's all an illusion, of course. Well might they wish there were such a hole in the wall through which they could escape to freedom. It is the scene they imagine they would see, if they weren't imprisoned behind high walls. I've often wondered how many of the prisoners (those not from the island) have actually seen any of Madeira. Whenever they are taken any place (the airport, the courthouse, the hospital), it is always in a prison van with no windows. All the beauty of nature around them, and even this they are kept from seeing. Their only idea of the island must come from what they see on the local TV station.

I think a lot of people in the world believe they are free, when in fact, it's only an illusion of freedom. All the while, they are imprisoned by sin, Satan, and the world around them. Satan does a good job of painting a beautiful mural of freedom on the walls that imprison us. Jesus, on the other hand, said that if the Son makes us free, then we are "free indeed". He doesn't repaint the wall; He demolishes it.