We all desire freedom, right?

But what is freedom?

At the risk of mansplaining, I want to …

Oh, here’s one I heard the other day: “My wife is using the word mansplaining incorrectly … and I don’t know what to do about it.”

Ha! Forgive me for some introductory thoughts on freedom.

But first, I’ve always liked the vision of heaven portrayed by C.S. Lewis in his novel, “The Last Battle.”

The recently deceased main characters first enter what looks like a small stable. But, once within, they start to explore and go on to discover an ever-increasing glorious world, with rivers and mountains and incredible vistas and joyful, deep relationships and peace.

Speaking of the stable:

“Yes,” said the Lord Digory. “Its inside is bigger than its outside.”

“Of course, Daughter of Eve,” said Mr. Tumnus. “The further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside.”

Hold that thought.

Our modern approach to freedom means I must have an unlimited list of choices, unlimited time, and DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!

But is that really freedom?

Can we feel free if we are forced to drive 25 mph down 3rd Avenue? Stuck in an unfulfilling job? Sick? Aging and can no longer drive ourselves to the grocery store?

Can you make yourself five inches taller?

Doesn’t freedom mean to live without the emotional claustrophobia imposed by too many restrictions or demands or judgements?

Jesus came to a people oppressed by the Romans. Most of his followers thought he would give them political freedom. He did not. He spoke about a different kind of freedom.

Could they be free although ruled and abused by their Roman conquerors?

The problem is that searching for a life without limits, with endless freedom of choices, will never satisfy.

Just like searching for contentment through material wealth, we won’t find freedom by pursuing unlimited freedom. There will always be something else — or someone else — I need to throw off.

Father Jaques Phillipe, in a great little book called “Interior Freedom,” mentions Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman living in the Netherlands and writing in her journal in the early 1940s (before dying in Auschwitz).

She confronts the steadily increasing persecution, humiliation, and oppression forced upon her.

But she discovers prayer, the presence of God, and the ability to abandon herself trustingly to Providence.

In 1942, she wrote, “We may of course be sad and depressed by what has been done to us; that is only human and understandable. However … I find life beautiful, and I feel free. I believe in God and I say so without embarrassment. Life is hard, but that is no bad thing. I am a happy person and I hold life dear indeed.”

Phillipe says, “Just when all her exterior freedoms were being progressively taken away, she discovered within herself a happiness and interior freedom that no one could steal from her from then on.”

So maybe we need to redefine freedom.

Freedom is instead internal. Once grasped, it can never be taken away. It’s found not in unlimited choices but in a life that flourishes in goodness, beauty, and love toward God and others, regardless of circumstances.

We can’t wait for employers, for politicians, for armies to supply freedom.

Learning to live within our limits is the key to a joyful, more satisfied, and happy life.

How much richer is the person who can see beauty not only in the warm July afternoon sun glistening on the lake but also appreciate the beauty — and find joy — in the overcast February sky over the ice flows stacking up along the shore?

Freedom is found in the opposite place we search for it: within.

So, think back to C.S. Lewis’ vision of heaven. Further up and further in.

Lewis also described hell in another novel called “The Great Divorce” as a place where people demand freedom at all costs. In the nature of all relationships, God and anyone else with whom they come into contact intrude on them somehow. They can’t tolerate any constraints, so they keep moving away from one another. But the further they travel, the smaller and more miserable everything gets.

Phillipe says, “Very often we feel restricted by our situation, our family, our surroundings. But the real problem lies elsewhere: in our hearts. There we are restricted, and that is the root of our lack of freedom.”

I’m not saying to cower and give up the fight for justice and truth in the world.

Fight on.

But, in our grasping for personal freedom, we may have it backwards.

The inside is bigger than the outside.

Phil Cook can be reached at 3upquarks@protonmail.com.