Live

There are many things that I would like to write about: the changes that God has wrought in my life over the past few months have given me many ideas. I would like to write about our freedom to LIVE. Not just exist, but to live. To choose how we will live: to put the past behind, to let go of bitterness, to sweep away clutter, to put aside anxiety and live with radical trust in our sovereign God. To be filled with Him and satisfied in His love, free to focus on others, to take joy in life, to risk everything for Christ. At peace with God, we can be at peace with others, demanding nothing of them and letting go of injuries. Forgiven, we can forgive and never remember again. We can love without reserve. We can choose to put aside malice and be free from its mastery, its debilitating, wasting oppression. We can choose joy and peace, because we have both in Christ. We can choose meaning, because God is not an impersonal ultimate: He has spoken into space and time, proclaiming truth. To believe in a sovereign God is not to be a deistic nihilist. Life matters. Pain matters. Joy matters. To live intentionally is to be exposed to sorrow, but it is also to embrace joy. To be optimistic is to be exposed to disappointment, but it is also to practice trust. Pessimism is like layers of brittle protective lacquer precluding pain and embarrassment, but choking hope and joy. We can protect and conserve, or we can expose and serve. We can hold on and fear, or we can let go and trust. We can live purely in the temporal -- bound by physical clutter and mental debris, disabled, our energy spent in worry, unable to break free and savor life; or we can live in the light of eternity -- unencumbered by possessions, bitterness, and anxiety; free to give, forgive, and be at peace. We can choose to maintain comfortable existence, safe, unused, reserved, and wasted, or we can choose a vibrant life of purpose. In the end we can die in the peace of comfort or the peace of God. We can leave this life preserved, unused, safe, dead within our lacquer; or we can leave poured out, used up, rejoicing in a life truly spent.