Getting Real, Part II

Life is full of mystery. And life is difficult. Add those two facts to your short list of things you can count on. I remember years ago, listening to Larry Crabb (well-known Christian psychologist) talk on Christian radio about how devastating the unexpected death of his older brother had been. As he worked his way through that extremely painful experience the main lesson he learned was that the only way to make it through life with one's faith intact was to find someone to trust in. All his Christian, biblical "principles" that he had so carefully worked out as a counselor that were supposed to help others failed to help him when he most needed them. He realized that the only way he was going to make it was to find someone he could completely trust, someone to lean on when he his own knees began to buckle.

This is the other side of the coin of getting real. I believe in a miraculous God and I believe we live in a time when miracles will increase in frequency. But I also believe that those who will see them will most likely be those who have gone through the wilderness, the crucible of testing and preparation. As that picture that is given to us in the Song of Solomon (8:5) indicates, it is when we come out of the wilderness leaning on our beloved that we will be close enough to his heart to do what is on his heart. Jesus showed us how this life in the flesh is to be lived - "I only do what I see my Father doing."

But getting back to the wilderness. Ah yes, how we hate the wilderness - that dry, perversly barren place! Other than death itself, I can't think of anything worse than having one's own nakedness and weaknesses exposed and highlighted. Physical pain is certainly excruciating, but a well-adjusted adult can find ways to manage it or dull it. But inward, soul-wrenching pain is what truly brings us to the end of our rope, to that place where, like Job, we cry out for God to either take our life or reveal himself to us and renew us. In the New Testament, this process of being brought "to the end of our rope" - and living there - is called "taking up the cross". Jesus made it clear that if we wanted to be counted as his disciple we would need to get used to this place on the end of the rope. Hanging used to be the primary form of capital punishment in our country. In the Roman world, it was an execution stake upon which the hapless criminal was impaled. We have sanitized it as a religious symbol, but in reality it was even more gruesome than the hangman's noose (try wearing that around your neck and see how spiritual you'll feel).

I've heard it said that the two most powerful beings in the universe are out to kill us. Resistance really is futile! Give it up. The best way to deal with God's attempts at killing us is to let him! The more you resist him the more drawn out (and painful) the process will be.

We all want to experience resurrection power; but to gain that we must

. . . lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
(Hebrews 12:1-2)

Are you ready to die? It ain't fun, but it's the quickest way to where we need to go.