As of today I have been alive 15,354 days. What have I done with this life? More importantly, who have I been? What has been wasted? What has been misused? What have I done with all that I have been given during these 15k days?
In the United States the difficulties are not a Minotaur or a dragon - not imprisonment, hard labor, death, government harassment, and censorship - but cupidity, boredom, sloppiness, indifference. Not the acts of a mighty, all-pervading, repressive government but the failure of a listless public to make use of the freedom that is its birthright. - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
To really max out our life for the purposes of Jesus; to live out our part of God's story to the fullest, requires that we embrace the birthright we have through the grace of God as his child. That we also embrace the freedom that we are given through Jesus. Freedom from the bondage of sin. Freedom from our past failures. Freedom from religion. Freedom to live in and through God's power rather than our pride. Living in anything other than that freedom is a ... waste.
Too often we live in a way that is marked by boredom, sloppiness, and indifference. Now in writing this I am not emphasizing more "doing". I am emphasizing more "being".
Paul said it like this, for to me, to live is Christ to die is gain. (Phil 1:21)
Someone said that life is what you are alive to. College football season is about to start, I come alive to that. Some people come alive to shopping. Others come alive to chocolate or a new piece of technology. It is not that coming alive to such things is so horrible. However, it leads to waste, indulgence, and maybe even gluttony, when we are more alive to things, other people, and experiences, than we are to Jesus.
More to follow...
That's a wonderful use of an Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quote. When he was writing he would have known exactly what it was like to take full advantage of whatever "freedoms" he could afford. If Soviets under Stalin had a limitless freedom in Christ, how much more do we? Yet I don't think those Soviets would be able derive from our facial expressions that we cherish freedom in any form, let alone freedom in Christ.
Unfortunately, I would think they'd have come to a fair conclusion.
Posted by: Jarrett Wilson | August 22, 2007 at 02:40 AM