“ … and David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.” —

(1 Samuel 30:6)

Everybody talks about freedom. In time of war and in time of peace, people talk about freedom. During the last war, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt met in mid-Atlantic and proclaimed the “Four Freedoms” for which the free world fought. A recent book bears the title, The First Freedom, and develops the thesis that man’s intellectual freedom to think and write and read and publish without fear is his “first freedom.”

Do we know what is man’s last freedom in war or peace, in life or death? What is the last freedom to which man may cling when all his personal and political and religious liberties have been stripped from him? What is the last freedom which no tyrant can ever take away?

Viktor Frankl, a Viennese psychiatrist, was for three years in a concentration camp. His entire family, with the exception of one sister, perished in those camps. In his imprisonment he suffered the loss of everything — except what he calls man’s last freedom. Here is what he says about this last freedom:

“In the concentration camp, every circumstance conspires to make the prisoner lose his hold. All the familiar goals of life are snatched away. What remains is the last human freedom, the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food, and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates are bound to react in a certain way; in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner becomes is the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him — mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity, even in a concentration camp. It is this inner, spiritual freedom that cannot be taken away that makes life meaningful and purposeful. The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives ample opportunity, even under the most difficult circumstances to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain dignified, brave, and unselfish. Or in the bitter flight for self-preservation, he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal.”

Now, none of us has been herded off to a concentration camp, but who of us has not at some time found himself in a situation where it seemed all freedom was gone? A character in Hitchcock’s Psycho expresses his belief that everyone is caught in his own peculiar trap in his own little corner of the world.

It can be a financial catastrophe or a moral failure that hems us in. It may be illness that traps us. Pain, crippling, weakness, may imprison in a darkened room and pin one to a bed flat of his back. We, who in delicious freedom, went where we wished, when we wanted, by our own power, may come to the time when we must depend on others entirely to lead us or carry us. But our freedom, though curtailed, is never completely gone. There remains that precious last freedom — that freedom to choose the spirit in which we shall endure or use those circumstances. We are not compelled to bitterness, resentment, despair. Nor are we automatically grateful, cheerful, courageous. We have the freedom to choose our attitude, and in that freedom, doors can be opened to glorious new worlds.

Dr. Henry Wade DuBose, distinguished leader of our church, died of cancer early this year after a long, painful, and confining illness. Mrs. DuBose could write after her husband’s death: “Wade had a long illness, but he never complained. He spent his time thanking God for the good life we had, for our countless blessings, and for the privilege of preaching the gospel for fifty years. His triumphant service instead of being an ordeal for me, lifted me up into heavenly places.” He was free to choose his attitude toward an imprisoning set of circumstances in his terminal illness, and the choice he made in that last freedom brought glory instead of gloom.

A great part of the thrilling pride Tennesseans are now feeling over their standout Olympic track star, roots in the fact that the spirit of Wilma Rudolph, 17th of 19 children, a polio victim who never walked the first seven years of her life, was free to choose her attitude toward the early unfavorable circumstances which surrounded her, and that instead of accepting the clamorous counsels of defeat, she chose hope and faith and courageous determination to excel, and will be bringing home to Tennessee three Olympic gold medals.

It may be we come to an imprisoning situation in a personal relationship. Perhaps we have worked and prayed and coaxed and got nowhere. We may feel as if we are in a straightjacket — all freedom of action and expression are gone. Are we completely helpless in that deplorable situation of fouled-up personal relationship? No. Never. There always remains the last freedom — our freedom to choose our attitude about it. Either hostility, resentment, bitterness, pious self-righteousness, or forgiveness, love, gratitude and hope.

Over and over again we hear the expression: “Oh, I feel so sorry for our young people today. They are caught in a deplorable situation. There hangs over their heads the daily threat of atomic extinction. Their preparation for life is interrupted by military service. They are caught in the vice-like social customs of a prosperous economy, easy morality. The pressures upon them are so great against sobriety, against chastity, against the shouldering of responsibility.” Yes, how true. But always for man, young or old, male or female, in any and every century and culture, the last freedom still remains: the freedom to choose in any set of circumstances the indomitable soul’s attitude toward those circumstances. The non-conformists among any society are always thrown in the lion’s den — but there are always some Daniels who dare for God and conscience sake to be different — for the last freedom remains — and God delivers them.

But how, when freedoms slip away and we feel caught in any sort of hemmed up circumstances — how to make the right decision and to choose the triumphant attitude which will issue in honorable, even noble action?

David shows us the way. He and his warriors returned from an expedition to find that a band of Amalikites had destroyed their city and taken away their wives and children to be sold in the Egyptian slave markets. David’s own family had perished in that catastrophe. The deep grief of David’s men soon boiled into resentment against their leader and they were on the verge of stoning him. Surely David was in a set of sad and desperate circumstances. What could he do?

The text says: “David encouraged himself in the Lord His God,” or as the Revised Standard Version reads: “David strengthened himself in the Lord His God.” What does this mean? It means David turned in contemplative trust to his God. He began to remember God’s promises to him, ever to be with him, and never to forsake him, and that no sword that was raised against him should prevail so long as David fulfilled his obligation as the Lord’s anointed.

Then David’s meditations and remembrances moved on into active prayer. He asked God what he should do in this seemingly disastrous defeat. Clear came the summons to pursue the despoilers. And David quickly obeyed and defeat was turned into victory.

So we learn that man’s last freedom to choose his attitude in any set of circumstances can be turned into a glorious and victorious freedom only if the choice is to strengthen one’s moral and spiritual discernment by communion with God and courageous obedience to His commands.