Dead ends

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.*

(Photo by myself at Paradise Beach, Rose Bay, NSW: October 2013)

Getting lost isn't fun. One feels like a complete idiot, especially if you have already looked up the directions, or told someone else where to go. I got lost (once last weekend and again this weekend) and had to turn around, dead ends are awkward and time consuming. One might start blaming the mistake on someone else, or a situation, or even yourself. Being late isn't fun. Especially if people are counting on you to be in a particular place at a particular time. Life just doesn't usually go to plan. I am learning that sometimes getting lost means finding something else, or learning something new, or remembering something important. I am realising that being late is disappointing but not un-resolvable.

One of my readings for university the other week asked me to do a thought experiment: "Suppose, having died, one were to awaken anew to life, ....beholding given life from beyond the normal division of life and death. Suppose we were to think from out of the future when we will be dead, about what is worthy of affirmation here and now. How would one behold now the interim of life, as if from beyond death, ... wondering what in life is worthy of ultimate love."**

So I believe in life after death, but I also believe that this life is essential and worthy of living well. In fact, I believe this is THE life to make decisions and work out what everything is all about. What is worthy of ultimate love? What is worthy of affirmation here and now? We won't have another chance like we have here and now to think it all through, to learn what we can, to experience and appreciate what is important about life. Everything in this life is decaying, is passing away. The other day, I went for a jog along the beach and found a few dead birds washed up. It's a shocking part of life that most of us in western society ignore and don't have to think about, but it's there! It's real. It's imminent.

Life seems to give us many options for how to live and what to live for, but honestly I'm skeptical of the satisfaction we can find in most of them, and I don't always see or follow where the "good" end is, or are we only ever focused on instant pleasure!?? I will one day die. It may be in 60 years time, or it could be in 3 months time. No one knows. I am sure of one thing; when I die I will meet my Maker, I will meet the Judge, the Creator of the universe! Mostly, I call Him Father. I can do so because I know He has adopted me, Jesus died so that I could be part of the family! I can only meet the Father with confidence, as I have accept what Jesus did and trust His ways to be in my best interests. Jesus of Nazareth, said: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.***

So, my life is not my own, I live for Jesus, because I was bought with a price! He is the way to live and think, He is the truth on which I base my thoughts and life, He gives and sustains my life so that I can live! And not only that, Jesus is God, He created everything, He sustains everything, without Him nothing would exist! This Awesome, All-powerful God came a human and died, and my old life, the one that was wasting away has died with Him. So I can say, with Saint Paul, in confidence and peace:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.****

So, are we lost? are we running late? have we forgotten the directions? Are we really sure we know what we are doing here? What if we miss the right path? What if we ignore sound advice and good instruction? What if we reject help just because we are too proud or arrogant or busy to stop and listen? In the small matters these things can go by without much hard to ourselves and we can even learn things about ourselves, but let us not try and apply this "come what may" attitude to ultimate love and worth, life and death issues!

*Philippians 1:21
**William Desmond, "Ways of wondering: beyond the Barbarism of Reflection", 2012
***John 14:6
****Galatians 2:20