What does it mean to be a human being? In the understanding of faithful Latter-day Saints, it means we are the literal offspring of our Heavenly Father. We have His spiritual DNA in our mortal bodies. Every human being is a child of God and that identity defines our freedom. Hence, to be truly free means to match our will to His. If freedom is our goal, our purpose every day we wake should be to strive to conform our lives to His – our desires to His, our thoughts to His and our actions to what He would have us do in this mortal existence.
This divine context for our mortal existence bestows upon freedom complex meaning drawn from our sacred inheritance. Freedom is individual. Freedom is communal. Freedom is choice. Freedom has boundaries. Freedom has consequences. Freedom has accountability. Freedom has gender structure. Freedom is marriage and family. Freedom is virtue. Freedom is charitable. Freedom is loyal. Freedom is merciful. Freedom is prudent. Freedom is welcoming. Freedom is process. Freedom is becoming.
A purposeful life is a journey with an ending. For faithful Latter-day Saints, our journey ends in the loving embrace of our Redeemer and His Father. This journey is filled with trials and tests of our faith, failures and successes, disappointments and joyfulness.
As a reflection of our lives, freedom, too, is a purposeful journey with a destination. That all are free to discover that purpose independently does not belie a Church of Jesus Christ perspective of freedom: Freedom exists to maximize mortal opportunities in every person’s quest, realized or not, to know the true and living God. That many people do not discover the true and living God does not belie this truth. Personal failures in the journey testify of freedom as much as do personal successes. Freedom is a sacred instrument in the eternal progress of every human being.
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