It took fifteen years for the two to meet again. He was now a middle aged man, running a business and raising a family. Walking home from a meeting, with his wife at his side, he saw the familiar carriage approaching from the distance.
The carriage showed signs of a hard life. It had traversed many miles, at break-neck speed, and crashed its way through many a barrier in its time. The mad drivers did not care for maintenance or for the welfare of the passengers, just that they vent their passion with full force and let fly their energies at a whim.
The carriage creaked its way toward the man and wife as they walked the dusty road. Finally it stopped just short of them. They saw the reins drop from the hands of the invisible driver. The door opened and a woman stepped out.
We Meet Again
The man approached slowly.
She was still beautiful to behold, but up close her face was painted and her eyes hard. She cast her scorning gaze upon the man and back to the wife waiting at a distance. The wife, plain in the way of country women, was no match for her own arrogant beauty and crafted image and appeal. The air was crisp in the silence of their meeting.
“You have not changed”, he said. “Thank you”, she oozed as she turned her cheek toward him.
“I mean, you have not become free.” She scowled at him with angry eyes.
“I see you have settled for second best”, she said with contempt as she glared at the wife, dressed in plain linen and face browned by the sun.
“Freedom is always better than slavery”, he said simply. “Ha!” She scorned.
Meet the Next Generation
Then another person stepped from the carriage. The woman’s baby had grown to a lovely young lady and looked even more beautiful than her mother ever had.
“This is the man I told you of”, mother said to her girl. “I’m very pleased to meet you”. The girl spoke with sincerity. The man nodded.
The girl then stepped past him and went to greet the wife standing at a distance.
“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” The woman urged.
“It is a tragedy she must endure your fate.” He spoke honestly, not as one taunting another.
Mutual Contempt
“You know nothing of life and its wonders. You have not seen what I have seen or been where I have been. You have strangled your life in this dull valley, with a woman who knows nothing of how to really live!”
“And what do you have to show for your wild adventures?” He asked.
She pointed her chin toward her lovely daughter. “Every man we meet wishes he was passenger with us. We are the envy of the whole world.”
“Yet your husband never returned for your life of wild abandon.” At this she turned her head and snorted.
What is Freedom?
“I have the freedom to go as I will and do as I please!” She declared.
“You have no freedom at all. You are a slave to every passion you ever yielded to. You have been trampled by every thing you thought would enrich you.”
She snarled at him. The hardness in her eyes and on her face made her beauty brittle. She had the beauty of an image painted on glass. There was no softness or life in it. His own wife, much more modest in demeanour and tempered in nature, did not have the hardened beauty of this painted woman, but she had a genuine radiance that was deeper than beauty, which glowed from the very depths of her being.
“I am not trapped by your civilities, laws and expectations. People know to let me have my head and to step out of my way. I am free to do what you would never allow yourself to do!”
“Yet you have no power to say ‘No’ to your own enslaving impulses. Not only must people get out of your way, but you, too, must rush with the impulse that throws you this way and that.”
She stared him down in defiance, unable to think what else to throw at him.
“I am free to say ‘No’ to you. Your husband was free to walk away. But you are the sorriest slave of all, for you cannot get free, even from yourself!”
The Appeal
As this exchange took its course the young lass spoke quietly to the plain wife with the sun-browned skin. She had longed for his moment for many years and even anticipated such a conversation.
“Is it true you can free us from this curse?” The woman squeezed her hand and nodded. “Yes, and we’d love to help you.”
“I’m afraid mother will never let me be free while she is still alive, but one day…”, she paused to gain courage for what she wanted to say. “One day I will come this way again and ask you to help me.”
“We will be here waiting. I promise.”
Ghost Drivers Take Charge Again
Suddenly a raucous “Cumalongnow!” growled from unseen voices and the horses reared up ready for a charge.
The woman stepped toward the carriage, head held high and rage in her sparkling eyes. She had sought the man out to mock him, but now he had stood his ground and everything within her whirled in a torrent of contempt and rage.
But the daughter gripped the wife’s hand with all her might. Invisible cords pulled relentlessly at the young body, tearing her back to the waiting vehicle. “Cum! Cum!” the mad voices demanded.
In an instant the daughter was pulled inside with her mother and whisked away in a fury of stamping hooves.
Two faces looked back through the swirling dust. One bore mocking defiance and the stubborn insistence of her own self-will. The other looked longingly for the day they would meet again and the road to freedom would be traversed.
Generational Curse
Have you trapped your children into a life controlled by your Ghost Drivers? Are you raising the next generation to the same slavery which has dogged your life?
Or have you broken the curses passed down from generations, so your own descendents can live in true freedom?
The Ghost Drivers are linked to your self-will. If you will to be a slave they will gladly fulfil your wish. If you will to be free, then you must use your will to humble yourself before God and allow Him to set you free.
True freedom awaits you. True beauty of soul is waiting to be seen from within you.
Come free today, through the finished work of the Cross of Christ.
To read the earlier instalments in this important story of slavery and freedom click the following links:
Part One: http://chrisfieldblog.com/ministry/ghost-driver
Part Two: http://chrisfieldblog.com/ministry/ghost-driver-2
Tags: allegory, freedom, ghost driver, true freedom
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