You might have noticed that, left to our own devices, there are actually significant limits on our freedom. Those who struggle with sin or addiction will know well the painful cycle of repeatedly making a bad choice. If only for the briefest moment, we convince ourselves that just one more can’t hurt, and so the will continually inclines toward damaging action, misapprehended for the moment as a good. Our choices are rather dependent on our own fallen selves, and so we will not always be able to avoid deceiving ourselves and making poor choices. True freedom, then, can only be found outside ourselves, in grace given freely by God that can break us out of our own self-imposed prison. It is by such grace that John’s interior movements were so perfected that he was able to freely give his life. It is only by such divine grace, and not by some creative act of the will, that we can truly draw closer to God.