To Live or Die

I now know why God asks us to "Live" for him. Because it is the harder option.
All of us have that question posed to us, by Paul. "For me, To Live is Christ, and to Die is Gain."
If I live, then I must live in Christ, and portray His life here on this broken earth as His ambassadors to the Kingdom of Heaven.
If I die, I get to go to that Kingdom.
Being an ambassador is very hard.
Living in this place is very difficult.
I used to wonder why Christ struggled with death, in the garden. After all, He was perfect. Dying was his sure fire ticket into heaven.
It was not dying that made His sweat drops of blood, rather, it was the difficulty of "living" our sins for us. Living was the difficulty for Christ, and now that we are in Him, we too, have that difficulty.
It is hard for us to go on living, imagining that nobody loves you, or will EVER love you.
It is hard to go on living, thinking you have been forgotten.
It is so difficult to live, knowing that you have been abandoned, and may possibly have to be abandoned again in the future.
All for His glory. All for His will.
We live to die. Die to ourselves.
Do you know how hard that is? Have you tried to Live Death recently?
I sometimes wonder if I feel even a fraction of the struggle Christ had in that Garden. If my streaming tears, jewels that will never be set in gold, could ever compare to the tears that He cried.
My blood, that sits so safely in my arteries and veins, will never know the pressure that forces it through the capillaries of my skin.
Yet He keeps calling. He keeps asking me to die. A little bit at a time.
Do this. Give up that. Sell this. Say that. Die here. Die there. And here.
And here.
Die now.
It hurts to die. At least, when you're still living.
Leaving this world will be so easy, but then again, that's the point, isn't it?
And even now, He calls me. He calls me to get up and keep pressing on.
Sometimes, I hate Him for that. But He loves me just the same, and I guess, that is what keeps me moving forward, is the promise that someday, it will all be made new.
So here I go again, to live another day dying.
One day, I won't have to live anymore.

Outside for the first time

I went outside today, and I saw the sky. I noticed how much bigger it was than me.
Staring at the clouds that enveloped the sun, I never noticed before how small I was. The sky is huge here. Smaller in Bolivia, and not as big as Africa, the sky screams its presence and demands to be seen. I felt like I'd never seen it before.
It is quite a terrifying thought, feeling so small in the sight of the trees. Everything seems so far away, and yet it is so much closer than it has ever been before. How can we exist in a place for so long and never notice the clouds?
The rain falls heavy today. I feel like I've only just felt the first drop of water in my whole life. It feels warm and strange, yet comforting.
I don't know what it means. I feel so weird, like I've only opened my eyes for the very first time. Thought for myself for once.
Even the people I love raise their voices in contrast. I don't want to hear them anymore. I don't want to doubt. I want to believe. I have to believe.
I do believe.
The world looks so different, now that I'm finally outside. Outside of myself for the first time.

Yikes

It is amazing at how quickly the panic sets in... it seems just yesterday, (oh wait, it was) when I was writing about how everything is starting to make sense, and now, I guess, it is only natural for the overwhelming feelings of panic to flood in.

It isn't like I didn't see this coming. It's just that I started thinking about it on the way home from work today. I suppose thinking is what the problem really is, because I don't worry if I don't think.

But then, while I was driving home, something made me realize that I'd probably only be doing this for two or three more weeks. And after that, I don't know where I'll be driving. It's possible that I won't have my own "home" to go to.

Thoughts of the verse, Matthew 8:19 and 20, when a teacher of the law came to Jesus and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go."
Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

"No place to lay his head."
The cost of following Jesus. Is this the true cost?
I started thinking about what it would be like to live out of my car. Having to get a P.O. box because I wouldn't have a real mailbox. Having to take showers at the four seasons locker room because I don't have my own shower. I wondered what it would be like if a cop woke me up in the middle of the night because I was sleeping in my driver's seat in a parking lot somewhere.

That's when I started to panic. It's not that I don't think I couldn't do it. Millions of people sleep in a cardboard box at night. At least I have a car.

I am able to make plans with the rest of them. But then I wonder how my plans tie in to God's will. I tell myself, "He wouldn't make me do that. He wouldn't make me live on the street."
And I wonder, why wouldn't He? He could do whatever He darn well pleases.
And I am slowly learning to be ok with that. I think that might be one of the other things that scares me. How easy it is for me to simply accept his will, or at least what I attempt to pass off as his will.

Coincidencs are not without a sense of irony.

Coincidences. I find that I don't believe in them so much. Not anymore.

Coming back from Bolivia has been interesting, to say the least. I can't lie, and say that this summer was as amazing as I would have liked. No, this summer was torture. So many things happened to me that left me writhing in a sort of "spiritual pain", if I can say it like that.
I realize now, that this whole year has been a sort of spiritual pregnancy, as an idea has been growing inside my head that only recently has been birthed.
Conceived about a year ago, I attended a church service where John Hernandez (the founder of CIN) preached about "Nailing whatever is holding you back from Christ to the Cross."
I didn't understand much of the sermon, because it was mostly in spanish, but what I do remember, was how John challenged us to write down on a piece of paper whatever it was that was holding us back from following Christ. Then we were to walk to the front of the church, where he had multiple wooden crosses and nails. He asked us to nail what was on that paper to the cross.
Cliche, I thought. But then I started thinking about what that actually meant. What was it that was holding ME back from serving Christ? It wasn't my sin, though sin does keep us from God. I realized what was holding me back was my life. I had been keeping my life neatly compartmentalized, tucked away in the corners of my mind, free from God's control. I wanted to have my "Christianity Cake" and eat it too.

Sure, I was a Christian. I was doing everything that God could ask of any Christian. I was living the life any true North American Christian would. And I know, that it was okay to do so. I wasn't committing any sin by living this life.

But I suspected, that there may be more to it. And I knew, that this "life", as I called it, was what was holding me back. From what, I couldn't tell you at the time. I just knew that it was holding me back from what God truly had in store for me. So I had the choice. Continue my "life", and live in the shadow of God's Glory. Or give my "life" away, and potentially bask in the fullness of it.

So I scribbled "Mi Vida" on the paper, and I walked up to the front. I nailed my life to the cross.
In Spanish.

I didn't know what that meant for a very long time. I tried "giving up" my life after that, sacrificing what I thought anyone who had done such a thing should. Like sleep to read my bible. But eventually, I forgot and resumed life as normal. Every now and then, God would casually remind me of how I nailed my life to the cross, but I never really understood what it meant so I ignored it.

And this year was hard. So hard that there were times I just wanted to die. I would cry myself to sleep almost every night, feeling so alone, hurting so badly. Not wanting to live here, but not wanting to live anywhere. Even this summer in Bolivia, I had nights of "I just don't want to be here, God," running through my skull until the thoughts leaked out of the cracked glass of my soul. "I don't want to be anywhere."

Satan has pushed so hard, this year. He has lurked in every shadow, every corner. Every time I looked in the mirror, he was there. Scratching at my arms, feeding on my thoughts. Satan has been a punk this year. And I have fought back. Tooth and nail, I have pushed back. I keep seeing images in my head of a lone warrior with nothing but a shield, pushing against the hordes of hell. That scene in 300? Where they are pushing the army off the cliff? That is me, and Satan is going over.

I've hated my friends this year, and learned to love them again. I've committed sins that I had promised God many years ago that I'd never do again, and have fresh scars to show from it. This year has been so tough, and I didn't know why. But it's all starting to make sense. This summer was nothing but contractions in the birthing process as the idea began to free itself from my mind.

I guess all the poetic wording is to make this one statement: Everything makes sense now. All of it. Or at least the parts that matter.
From learning how to depend on friends, to having none at all. From realizing that sin isn't something you can completely free yourself from, it has to be understood to be conquered. (And only Christ can do that.) From getting to Bolivia, and realizing that wasn't enough to make me happy. To praying for a clear vision of my life, knowing I wasn't meant to be a clown forever. Having John Hernandez tell me this year how when Levi was called, (by Jesus) that he "Got up. Left all. And followed Him." To learning I had a love for Hispanic and Latin culture and people, to remembering that I had nailed my LIFE to the CROSS. IN SPANISH. To panicking because God revealed to me what that meant. Getting home, realizing I was losing my job (at least, the job in the way that I know it.) Reading Matthew and getting stuck on the part about the rich young ruler. Having the words, "This one thing you lack, sell all your possessions, give that money to the poor, and Follow Me."
Follow Me. Follow Me. Follow Me.
I can't shake the words from my head. Follow Me.

I keep telling myself I'm making thing up. This isn't a burning bush, but it's pretty hot.

That, and realizing now, how the whole time in Bolivia, I had a pair of Jeans that had (what I thought was a Venezuelan flag) stitched into the seam. Those jeans were a size 34, a size that I was just able to fit into this summer. Come to find out, it was a Colombian Flag. The very place I've had rolling around in my mind lately. "Colombia just fits so nice."
Coincidences are not without a sense of irony. And that irony has not been lost on me. That final piece of the puzzle isn't there yet, but it is in my hands, waiting for a very crucial conversation. But I know that the puzzle will never be complete until I put that piece in. It is only a matter of time before I decide to complete it.
Prayers are always helpful.