Man's greatness and misery
Psalm 8, 4
In each one of us, God sees a spark of His own being and He loves us even when we turn away from Him. "But God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners.." (Romans 5,8)The wonderful way in which the Bible describes the essence of man cannot be surpassed. We human beings have all the reasons to consider ourselves fortunate, as does the psalmist in the Old Testament:
"What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him little less than God, You crown him with glory and honor. You have given him domination over the works of Your hands, You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the path of the sea. ... O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!"
Man's freedom - gift and risk
There are times where we are able to embrace "God and the world". We feel healthy, loved and happy. It is nice to be on earth. For all this the believer thanks God, his creator. The preceding psalm of praise may also have come into being during happy times. Man is gifted with the ability to see only the good things around him at times. If he also always had to look at life's negative sides, he would never be able to really take delight in the world and himself. But periods of suffering and sorrow, anger and disappointment, come back just the same.
On August 4, 1941, Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan priest, was put to death in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Originally, a Polish father of a family was supposed to die. Kolbe offered to take his place and the camp administration agreed. The father of the family returned home.
Was this act not Father Kolbe's own, free decision? Everybody knows that He did not have to do it. Even if he felt urged to take this action by Jesus Christ's message of love, the fact remains that he did it voluntarily. The love of Christ enabled him to become free for his fellow man, who needed his action. Freedom and responsibility belong together. Responsibility does not suspend freedom, it marks off its limits.
Freedom that is misunderstood or misused can lead to total dependency. We are free to get addicted to alcohol and many become dependent on it. But we also can become addicted to other human beings and ideologies. Or, misusing our freedom, we may become egoists and tyrants who do not care for anybody else. Faithfulness and love are betrayed and disappointed. The great gift of freedom presents, at the same time, risk and danger for man.