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I had an interesting conversation this morning with a Nigerian taxi driver on the way to the airport. It started when I asked him about the rap song on the radio. I only caught a few words but it was enough to make me wonder if it was a Christian group. So I asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but in my country all our popular singing groups are Christian. That’s your problem in America; you have left God out of everything. Everything is ‘Me,’ ‘Me,’ ‘Me.’ No one has any fear of God. There’s no respect for anyone but the almighty ‘Me.’”

A wakeup slap in the face at five o’clock in the morning to say the least! But he’s right. The Book of Proverbs in the Bible opens with: “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,” and that pretty much sums up its contents. To fear God is to care about what God thinks about you and what you do, and to know there are right and wrong attitudes and actions, and consequences for those who disregard any of this. There might have been a time in this country when this kind of attitude was a part of everyone’s moral framework, but it is not so today. Leave it to an African to tell an American about the fear of God. I told him maybe it was his country’s turn to send missionaries to us. He didn’t disagree.

Then our talk turned to freedom. “In America,” he said, “your freedom means freedom to do whatever you want. That’s not freedom.”

Right again. Freedom is not equal to autonomy. That kind of freedom, given our propensity to sin, is actually slavery. We become enslaved to our lusts and desires if we don’t have any help with controlling our sinful nature. That’s why Paul taught that the spiritual life grows out of being set free from the bondage of sin and death to serve a new Master and a new way made possible by the Holy Spirit’s power in our lives. (Romans: chapters 6-8)

Bottom line is: we are all still servants, whatever we choose. Bob Dylan said it as well as anybody when he sang to us about how we have to serve somebody. It might be the devil or it might be the Lord, but either way, the most we can expect of ourselves is to be serving someone. Whomever we choose will be our master. We are simply not strong enough to use our freedom well. Christ sets us free to follow Him, not to do what we please.

In the world my Nigerian taxi driver grew up in, people understood that. In the America he’s seen so far, they don’t. As we parted, my driver said he hadn’t met many people like me. I find that rather sad, because I don’t think I’ve even got it yet.

The church in America needs more Nigerian taxi drivers.

John Fischer is an author, speaker and song writer. For more of his writing, visit www.purposedrivenlife.com