A Life Shaped and Re-shaped by Prayer

Wednesday, Week 3 - Philippians 3:10-11: Resisting Avoidance

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Death and resurrection are not just what happen at the end of this earthly life, death and resurrection is the pattern to all of life.   A child leaves the comforts of home for the first day of preschool; a way of life with one parent most always there is ending.  The child may cry, in part due to the sense of what is being lost, and in part because of the fear of this unknown new way of living.  The pattern continues with each major life change.  Some move to a new part of the country leaving important relationships behind with the hope of making new ones.  Some get married and must die to a degree of independence in order to assume a new life of interdependence.   You may take a new job, speak up for injustice, publically admit your dependency at a 12-step meeting, get divorced, become disabled, etc. and life changes irrevocably.    Death (the ending of one whole way of life) and resurrection (the receiving a new life) is the pattern.

There is good news and bad news about this pattern.  The good news is that new life is promised!  Christ is risen and he goes before us, he is there waiting for us in each new school, each new home, each new relationship, each new job, each new way of being.  Christ is risen; he goes before us and he has power!  He has the power to surprise us with people, resources, opportunities, inner strength, signs of his love, and as yet undiscovered talents – all of which we had never imagined before and that we receive as a pure gift. 

There is some bad news however, for this promise of new life comes at cost.  First it costs us a degree of comfort, for dying to an old way of life can be painful.  Then too it costs us control, for we cannot see, feel, or know what the new life will be like until we die to the old, and there is no going back.   “My job is crushing me,” someone reports, “I want to quit but don’t know how I would survive if I did.”  How much suffering would this person endure if she quit?  Would she find meaningful work?  Would God surprise her with blessed opportunities, or would the weight of the world crush her?  They only way to know what the new life would look like is to die to the old. 

Many people simply are too scared to end one way of life regardless of how unhealthy, even though they are already suffering, because they cannot yet see what the new way of life looks like.  Paul understands that death and resurrection are the pattern to new life in Christ; and the way in which we most powerfully experience Christ and the power of his resurrection is by, again and again, dying to an old way of life.    As you engage the world today at school or work, on public streets or in the confines of your home, prayerfully live with this question, “What in me needs to die today?”

Lord Christ, we too wish to experience you alive and among us.  Give us the insight to know what we need to let go, or take on, in order to live more fully. Then give us the power to act, trusting that you will provide.  Amen.