over a period of days, i went from confusion to uncertain acceptance to joy and complete agreement to fear and demanding answers before any decisions were made...and then finally, to surrender.
there's a man in the bible who was told he would die soon, and who begged for life, which was given to him: 15 more years.
in those years, he made a terrible decision which resulted in harm for the nation of israel, and had a son who turned israel away from the Lord.
there are many lessons to take from this series of stories, but the primary one in my mind is that Jesus had it right: our underlying, overarching, all-invasive prayer should be "not my will but Thine."
let Your will be done, God, and give me grace to accept it.
as i was laying on the floor, face down, praying for the strength and grace to surrender all, a friend asked if i had vision for the future.
i did not.
and God was asking me to lay down my life.
i felt like vision for the future was beside the point.
but, as i had done all i could to lay my heart down in absolute surrender, i turned my heart heavenward and opened it up, just the tiniest bit, in case He might have something to say about the future.
and He did.
things that were already in my heart, dormant, pushed aside, disconnected, and written off as "not now."
and where moments before there had been the emptiness of surrender,
there was now a resurgence of life, hope, and possibility.
death is necessary, but it is not the end.
it has been six months since my wonderful, odd, sacred, terrifying trip to hawaii, and i'm finally finishing writing about it today: Easter.
today we celebrate and declare that victory has been won.
not simply so we can brush off our mistakes and come clean. not only for the magnificent hope of heaven. and certainly not so we can eat chocolate and hunt for easter eggs.
we celebrate because death is not the end.
it is not victorious.
death is only part of the vast and necessary process of life.
when lazarus walked down the streets in his younger years, nobody pointed and said, "hey look at that alive guy!"
but when lazarus died.
when lazarus was raised to life again...people talked.
someone surely said, "hey, that guy was dead and now he's alive!"
someone surely glorified God.
and if that's what we're after, the glory of God, we've got to be a people who see the power and importance of more than Christmas, more than the birth.
yes, God became flesh and dwelt among us, as a man. it's amazing.
but the power and importance of good friday,
when the King of all creation laid down his life,
gave himself over to death,
and said with divine wisdom, "it is better for you that I go."
and the power of today, when he rose again. when death was swallowed up in victory.
Jesus lived in the infinite, and then in the flesh, and then passing through death brought the infinite life to the flesh.
it's incredible.
it's our blueprint for life.
"That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies...
It is sown a perishable body,
it is raised an imperishable body;
it is sown in dishonour,
it is raised in glory;
it is sown in weakness,
it is raised in power;
it is sown a natural body,
it is raised a spiritual body."
(1 corinthians 15)
that which you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
amen.
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