Alive in Me

One thing we are promised in a life following Jesus is the cross. We often do not like to acknowledge the "suffering" part of this journey. The times your flesh is annihilated, you get your preferences roughly zero percent of the time, you start looking odd to people, you end up losing things, being alone ... whatever. The more you lose, the more alone you become, the more you realize that eternal things are it. Nothing else really matters. We can't even make our own heart beat, which is necessary to stay alive, so it is actually laughable we think we control anything else. The fact we can stand unashamed in His presence at the end of it all, no matter how imperfect we are is all that really matters.

We have had a lot of disappointment and a lot of loss. Some stories, I do not believe we will ever even tell because reliving it to tell it is too painful. Suffice it to say, we have deeply lived the songs we have written. Second Corinthians 4:7 states: "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us."

Jesus told His disciples not to rejoice as much when the demons submitted to them, but to rejoice that their names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life. I think we all need to stop rejoicing so much about what we have done, built, earned, created ... and start marveling more in the face that God is in us and that we have access to the One who created it all. We cannot do one single thing without Him.

No matter how broken, dead, and mockable my life may appear to someone else, I know that God's glory comes with me to accomplish what He has given me to do. It does not matter if I am doing what I do to an empty room, it just demands my all, and my consistency and faithfulness. What God has placed in me does not die. He is alive in me, and His Word does not return to Him void. It accomplishes what it was sent out to do (Isaiah 55:11).