A woman would enjoy a husband who really cared about her freedom. Loving parents may be tough at times but they long for their children to have the freedom they need to live their lives. And a happy church congregation is where people genuinely care about the freedom of others. So my job is to help each one of you enjoy the freedom to love and worship God in your own way. As long as we are afraid our sin and failures might cut us off from the loving grace of God, we can never be free from the nagging guilt that eats away at our soul.
Love includes the assigning of consequences.
If we want our children to be free we have to assign consequences for behavior that would harm them or take away their freedom. The other day I heard of a father who rushed into heavy traffic to grab his little girl who was within inches of being killed by a truck. If she stubbornly insisted on doing it again, he would make clear what consequences would be assigned. But leaving the girl to keep running across the road would certainly end any freedom she had. If society is to enjoy any kind of genuine freedom we need a police force and judges and jails to assign consequences for behavior that would destroy us.