“If the Son sets you free you are really free” John 8:36

As free and wonderful the Fourth of July celebration is for us, better still is the freedom We experience on the inside. I was reminded of this in reading a prisoners testimony recently. His name is Nick Molina. “I would have killed that guy if Jesus hadn’t changed my heart. That guy was my partner. We both got arrested for murder. He testified against me. He wound up in the same jail as me for another crime. I was beating him up pretty good when the guards broke it up. I didn’t get a chance to use my knife on him , but I vowed I’d kill him the next time I saw him. I didn’t get a chance. They transferred me. Five years later he got transferred to the same prison. As soon as he found out I was there, he had some friends come talk to me. I told them I wanted to talk to him alone. I was a young believer in Christ at that point, but I knew God wanted me to forgive him. So I told him how Christ had given me the strength to forgive him for testifying against me. I told him I loved him and wasn’t going to kill him. In fact, I let him know that I could help him in this place and we could be friend again. I couldn’t have done that on my own. So I figured if God could help me forgive my partner, He could do anything. So I started to pray a lot. I had been separated from my family for almost 20 years. They live on the streets of Mexico and were very poor. How would I even begin to know where to find them? I started praying. It took a while, but I met a guy who got transferred from another prison. He had the same last name as mine. We weren’t related, but he told me about someone in another prison who might be. I wrote that guy and he put me in touch with a bunch of my relatives – in the United States and in Mexico. One family visits me all the time now.  More good things happened after I prayed. I found out my family’s phone number in Mexico. I couldn’t get through to them from prison, but I kept praying for God to make a way.     Not only did God hear my prayers, the warden must have too. He got on the case and now I can talk to my family whenever I want. Impossible situations……hard feelings. These were just the raw things in my life that God used to show me His goodness and mercy. You should pray too, especially for the things you don’t like praying for. Then watch GOD work. Just watch.” Nick said, “If God could help me forgive my partner, HE COULD DO ANYTHING.” We can be so limited by our misconceptions of God. We know what scripture says about His unlimited power, but we often act as though our God is too small. Can we remember  that as Nick found out, “If the Son, sets you free, you shall be free indeed….truly free to experience GOD doing impossible things in your life. Let’s be depending on God the way He asks us to…..blessing after ….blessing will be ours.