When I was a young boy my friend had a go-cart his dad fixed up for him. He explained that his dad had put a governor on the throttle so he wouldn’t go too fast. To my 9-year old mind that was foolishness. Why have a machine that can give you all these great thrills and then bridle it. I told my friend that was stupid. In reply he summed up the situation like an adult, “he doesn’t want me to get hurt.”
I didn’t comprehend the message back then, but as a dad I certainly do. We are given governors to protect us from harm. Like the bridle on a horse, we curtail the strength and energy of a power greater than ourselves. The actual purpose of a bridle is to enhance freedom, but that idea is foreign to immature minds and people full of pride.
At first, the horse rebels against the bridle. With time he learns to accept the bridle as a safe tool. As the horse and the rider mature, both gain mutual trust and respect and eventually the rider gives complete control to the horse and rides free reign. Ultimate trust.
The Lord has placed bridles or governors on us called the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity. The immature and prideful call these harmful and degrading despite the fact that they have no control over their runaway bodies. The laws of God are not control mechanisms, in fact, just of the opposite. When mutual trust and respect are established between you and God, He gives you free reign to make decisions on your own.
We call that agency. When behavior runs away and roams without boundaries it is called addiction and a complete loss of agency. The irony is the addicted coffee drinker mocking the completely free coworker who requires no outside stimulus to be productive and happy.
