Freedom in the Net

Does restriction limit freedom…or provide it? Whitney Lowe opens our thinking.

Elisa

Freedom in the Net

By Whitney Lowe

Just a few months into the thick of my eating disorder, one of my close friends called to check on me, noting that a mutual friend had said of me, “It’s like she lost the light in her eyes.”

During that period of my life, I chose to hang my happiness on my ability to be thin and others’ admiration of it. I all but removed God from how I understood my identity. I didn’t want God’s version of freedom and joy, in which I could eat full meals in good company and release control over each calorie. I didn’t understand that my worth was already set. I thought I had to create my own worth and value. For a time, I thought I was free. But it was counterfeit.

Human beings love freedom, don’t we? Whether we turn to drugs and alcohol or to money, beauty, youth, control, you name it, we want to be the masters of our own fate and the arbiters of our own happiness. We desperately desire abundance on our own terms. It never ends well. Because it turns into idolatry every time.

True freedom is found when we submit to the pursuit of God and receive abundant life according to his blueprint.

In Scripture, abundant life may not look like what we expect it to. It often comes from the most unexpected places: In Christ, a cross that represented torture and empire becomes a symbol of grace and love. The last shall become first, and those who elevate themselves will be sent to the back of the line. Freedom is found not in total autonomy but within the parameters God has set for human flourishing.

What might look like constricting and controlling limitations set by God are sources of freedom. Closeness to God on his terms is the only way to truly live.

When Israel ran from God, he knew she was running into her own destruction, a prison of her own making. He set about rescuing her:

“When they go, I will throw my net over them; I will pull them down like the birds in the sky. When I hear them flocking together, I will catch them.” (Hosea 7:12)

God gets up, grabs his net, and comes after us. God pursues us to catch us and keep us within the boundary lines he has set out for our good. I like this visual, because I often find myself conceiving of God’s precepts and principles—God’s boundaries for us—as those famous stone tablets, monolithic and cold, that we find in Exodus. To be caught in God’s net is a hard, painful thing. To be allowed to run toward our own destruction, though, is the real tragedy. Here we see God’s desire for intimacy moved to its feet, and this time he throws his net over us to keep us from our own destruction.

The inherent paradox of flourishing and freedom is why so many people who make freedom their goal end up alone, clawing at fulfillment and success. Freedom isn’t a lack of restrictions; it’s the ability to rest and enjoy what you have. Without commitment, we are alone. Without a covenant, we are unsafe, prone to abandonment at any moment. Without boundaries around us and constraints to limit us, every good thing we manage to obtain becomes its own idol. That was certainly the case for me with my eating disorder.

In the world we live in—where autonomy and individualism are the highest goods, where following your heart might as well be a moral imperative—being caught by Christ might initially feel like oppression, but it’s the furthest thing from it.

Listen to Jesus and hear the care in his voice: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what good will it do a person if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul? Or what will a person give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:25-26 NASB).

In his boundaries—in his net—are true abundant life and deep abiding rest. Because of God’s pursuit, you can experience life to the fullest and maintain your soul.

Taken from Called Back to Who You Are by Whitney Lowe. Copyright © January 2026 by Zondervan. Used by permission of Zondervan, www.zondervan.com.

Whitney Lowe wants to see young women excited about God’s work: in the Bible, in history, in the world, and in them. She writes and creates on Instagram @ScribbleDevos, a project born from the realization that young women simply do not interact with the Bible enough to be changed by its truth. Whitney is the author of the newly released, Called Back to Who You Are. Whitney is passionate about disrupting the toxic scroll of social media with hope, peace, and light straight from Scripture. She lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband, who is a pastor, and their two young children.