Today while my wife and kids and I played outside, we heard an unfamiliar sound. It was a distant screaming cry. It was repeated several times and sounded the same each time. Suddenly my wife pointed into the sky and gasped, "look." We all looked up and saw two bald eagles soaring over us. They were fierce and free. There was grace and majesty, and we were allowed to glimpse it. And there was absolutely no doubt why they, of all creatures, have become the universal symbol of liberty.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote that "the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground" (Jefferson). There have always been those who hate freedom and the free, presumably out of a desire to dominate and control. And there is some part of human nature that desires to be dominated and controlled, which we can see throughout history...and California. But God gives us freedom in that He, through His Word and His Spirit, puts His law in our hearts. He even warned Israel not to desire a king because it would cost them the freedom that He intended for them to have (1 Samuel 8). (He enumerates the freedoms that they will lose in verses 11-17.) Our own founding fathers warned us that our system of government maximizes our freedom, but only so far as we are capable of governing ourselves as a moral people. John Adams wrote that "our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other" (Adams). The obvious reason being that an immoral people are incapable of governing themselves and must necessarily be ruled.
Even in Babylonian captivity, the free were still free. They still stood when the most powerful man on Earth demanded that they bow. Regardless of what man may do, the free children of God will never be separated from our Redeemer. The church will never surrender.
Adams, John. "To the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachussetts." Letter. 11 Oct. 1798. MS. N.p.
Jefferson, Thomas. "To Edward Carrington." Letter. 27 May 1788. MS. Paris, France.