What’s In Your Toolbox?

What's going on? Cadre fam. Happy Tuesday. Happy 4 July. Today is Independence Day. I'm assuming all of you are off and enjoying some time, much needed time with family, doing fun things. So it would be totally remiss of me not to acknowledge that freedom truly isn't free. So, for those of you who have made sacrifices of daily conveniences and time with your family and modern comforts, in order for the rest of us to live the way that we live here in America, thank you from the bottom of my heart, from Jill's heart, from the heart of everyone who works at Cadre.

We appreciate everything you do to make sure that our freedoms stay intact and that we're able to live a life of freedom in the way we do. And I know I'm speaking for myself, but many of you can probably relate. I take that for granted every single day, so it shouldn't be that way. We should not set aside one single day to thank people for our independence. However, that tends to be the way we operate. We just get going and we forget that the way we live is due to the sacrifices of others. So, in thinking about what I wanted to talk about today, freedom has been something that has been on my mind for the better part of two years.

Freedom means a lot of things, and I think it's really important for us to establish what those things really are. What does freedom mean to you and your family? Freedom for me starts with time freedom. A lot of us work a job from nine to five. We go home, we're in the shuffle. Whether you have kids, you're picking them up, you're making dinner, you're toting them from school to practice, you're going to bed, you're getting up, and you're doing it all over again, right? You work the corporate ladder, you pay into your four hundred one k and you wait for retirement in order to live a life of freedom.

So there's a time freedom aspect that's something that I've really been exploring. How do I create a business that allows me more time? Freedom. There is emotional freedom, there's mindset freedom. There are several different kinds of freedom that I don't think we actually explore enough to understand what it is that we actually want from our time on this planet. But before we get to all that, I see that as the pinnacle of the pyramid. I see it as Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Realistically, we can't get to the top of that pyramid if we don't have a set foundation.

So, as I was reading my Bible this morning. Now, I know that might turn some of you off, so stick with me momentarily, as this isn't gonna be a sermon. And I'm not trying to convert you. And I say that because for about 32 years of my life, I'm 35 right now. Scripture, the Bible, God, wasn't my thing. It's only very recently that I've been able to see my life within scripture, and I feel like what I read this morning is poignant. Whether you're a believer or you're not a believer, Galatians 513 says, for you have been called to live in freedom.

Don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. And I just find that to be so beautiful because we're at such a juxtaposition in this country where we're at odds and ends with one another. We're constantly fighting things to bicker about. We're constantly finding things to point the finger and blame somebody else for where something else went wrong. And this is the basis of freedom. For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters.

But don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. But I want to take it one step further. The word sin doesn't have to do anything. Again, with scripture or Jesus saving us from all of our sins. The ancient greek word for sin actually means to miss the mark. It was originally used to describe an archer's arrow that didn't hit the center of the target. In archery, it didn't matter whether your arrow was close to the mark or far from it.

If you didn't hit the center, you lost. So in scripture, the mark is the standard in which we're asked to aim for. But we all miss it. Each one of us sins every day. And what does look like we it miss the mark when we choose selfishness over humility. We miss the mark when we choose anger over gentleness. We miss it when we lie, when we cheat, when we steal, when we slander, when we complain, and when we gossip. We miss it when we tear people down and disobey the command to love one another. And sin prevents us from becoming the people that we're expected and asked to be.

That fulfills our full potential. So my ask of you today, the one day that we choose to celebrate our freedom, is, are you actually living free? Are you setting yourself up for the freedoms that you want to have? The time, freedom, the emotional freedom, the mindset freedom by setting your foundation of what freedom actually means, which is everything that I just stated. Are you loving your neighbor as you love yourself? Or are you gossiping? Are you lying to yourself? To others? Are you cheating yourself or others?

Are you slandering people's names? Are you pointing and playing the victim? Are you choosing to be selfish? Or are you choosing to give your love away? Are you living in gratitude for the things that you have, rather than living in a space of lack and thinking of all the things that you don't actually have? Because if the answer to those questions is yes, then you, I want to propose, are not truly free. And even though we live in the land of the free, the home of the brave, you are a slave to your own mind and your own tendencies.

So I would love if you took something from this away and figured out what freedom actually meant to you and where you were a prisoner of your own mindset, where you were a prisoner of your own actions, and what things that you could do today and every other day of the year to free yourself so you were truly living in freedom. Now, with that being said, happy fourth. Be safe tonight. Whether you've shot off a thousand bajillion fireworks in your life or not, still take the necessary precautions. Go out and have so much fun.

Can't wait to see you next week for this toolbox talk.