Human beings have an almost insatiable desire to control one another.

Often, the impulse to control roots itself in good intentions. We want to save others from themselves. But our efforts to control people strip them of their dignity.

God doesn’t treat his children in this manner. He allows us freedom. He guides and directs us, but he does not force his will on humanity, despite its sinfulness and rebellion.  Instead of using force and coercion to bend us to his will, God bears our burdens. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “God took men upon himself and they weighted him to the ground. In bearing with men, God maintained fellowship with them.”

We should follow His example and stop trying to impose our will on those around us. God offers us freedom. We should extend that same gift to our neighbors. As Bonhoeffer explains it the cross fulfills the law of Christ and Christians must share in his law.

“It is, first of all, the freedom of the other person…that is a burden to the Christian. The other’s freedom collides with his own autonomy, yet he must recognize it. He could get rid of this burden by refusing the other person his freedom, by constraining him and thus doing violence to his personality, by stamping his own image upon him. But if he lets God create his image in him, he by this token gives him his freedom and himself bears the burden of this freedom of another creature of God.

“The freedom of the other person includes all that we mean by  person’s nature, individuality, endowment. It also includes his weakness and oddities, which are such a trial to our patience, everything that produces friction, conflicts and collisions among us.”

Humanity has become obsessed with control through the political process. They turn to the force, violence and coercion of government in vain attempts to mold the world into their image. In the process, they do violence to their neighbors as they attempt to stamp their own image on them.

Christ calls us to a different path – bear your neighbor’s freedom.