The freedom of a believer has nothing to do with “independence” relative to the way of the world. YHWH (with inserted vowels YAHWEH transliterated JEHOVAH commonly interpreted the LORD) doesn’t play; the fact that God forever respects free-will neither compromises nor negates any aspect of His will as delineated in God’s Word. Our ever faithful, compassionate LORD God is Sovereign; He Who is Omniscient doesn’t require the opinion of those created in His image. For the clay is neither in position to debate nor question the Potter (Isaiah 45:9-12 & 64:8; Jeremiah 18:6-10).  

“15 Destruction is certain for those who try to hide their plans from the LORD, who try to keep Him in the dark concerning what they do! ‘The LORD can’t see us,’ you say to yourselves. ‘He doesn’t know what’s going on!’  16 How stupid can you be? He is the Potter, and He is certainly greater than you. You are only the jars He makes! Should the thing that was created say to the one who made it, ‘He didn’t make us’? Does a jar ever say, ‘The potter who made me is stupid’?” Isaiah 29:15-16 (NLT)

The fact that the LORD God is not a man that He should change (Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29; Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8; James 1:17), may be particularly difficult for a significant number who believe but are slack in regard to the (ongoing) transformation of their soul (i.e., intellect, will, and emotions) in God’s Word by the Teaching of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps such is the crux of unrest because there’s more to “resist the devil and he’ll flee from you”; comprehension and application of God’s Word is the precipitating factor; and friendship with the way of the world is enmity towards the LORD God (James 4:4,7). Therefore, God’s Word indeed distracts from the way of the prince of this world – the thief that comes to steal and kill and destroy – the “father of lies” (John 12:31; 1Co 2:6-8; Ephesians 2:2; John 10:10a & 8:44); hence the manipulations of the devil deterred the Holy Bible as well as prayer from public but now is the healing of the land by “oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of His splendor” Isaiah 61:3c (NIV).