To Live is Christ {day 3}

My pastor is preaching through Philippians. Sunday we made it through 3 verses (expository preaching, anyone?), spending a heavy amount of time on Philippians 1:21,

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Tonight was our monthly corporate dinner and prayer. Let’s be honest, I’m 36 weeks pregnant I was going for the free food and no clean-up…and Mary’s sopapillas. Seriously…they’re good.

I grew nervous as we gathered sharing prayer request. I’m an introvert, a writer, not an orator…after 2 decades of being a Christian I still don’t feel comfortable praying in front of people, especially people I barely know. I like safe.

After the group finished sharing prayer requests and praises, Phud (our pastor) said he wanted us to open up a time to pray about something more intimate and personal. He posed the question, What would our lives look like “to live as Christ”? Specifically, what hinders us from living as Christ?

Not what hinders the global Church, Christians in general, or even our local body—the very people in our midst.

But what hinders me from living as Christ?

Sitting in a group of mostly strangers, I wished I could quietly trade places with my husband and go watch the kids. I can pour out my heart in words, but to share it in front of faces that may or may not be safe, who may misjudge or pity me, who may think I’m bat-crazy for having pink-purple hair and being bowling ball size pregnant…that strikes fear in my heart.

But as different ones shared and we gathered in circles to lay hands and lift them up before the Lord, I began to think, What is it that hinders me to live as Christ?

Fear.

It always seems to come back to fear. Nothing new.

As I was rehearsing what I’d say in my head, I thought…It’s fear of being rejected, fear of not knowing what to say, fear and on and on. I continued to knead the question and answer.

I never got to share (to be honest I was a bit relieved), but as we bowed heads for the last time tonight tears began to creep from underneath my eyelids. I realized what hinders me to live as Christ.

I fear what it means to embrace all He has for me.

I’ve sang the songs. I’ve held my hands wide open and said, “Yes, Lord!” with a passionate smile on my face.

But I also know what means to live,

I will open my hands, will open my heart, I am nodding my head with an emphatic yes to all you have for me.

Sara Groves, Open My Hands

You can have all my hands can hold.

Charlie Hall, All We Need

You give and take away, but my heart with choose to say, blessed be your name.

Matt Redman, Blessed  Be Your Name

Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee.

They’re easy things to say, but to live them…to hold your hands open is a whole other story. I’ve been there. I’ve been bent over in tears and grief and pain and asked, “Why Lord? How is this good?”

To bleed out my babies. To stand on shaky ground and not know what’s next, to say, “I don’t know” when someone asks, “What’s the plan?” To have the Lord strip me of everything the world saw as worthy—the educational accolades I built, the career path I strived toward. Even this call as sojourner…I’ve held my hands open when most of the time I want to clutch them tight and scramble for consistency and longevity.

I’ve seen it in the lives of others. In grandmothers who’ve lost children and still feel the loss 50 years down the road. In fathers who walk out on their families and never look back. In cancer taking my mother-in-law’s life when my husband was 15.

In an uncle dying leaving behind a young widow and two children. I’ve seen it in friends who’ve answered the call to go into the harvest and be met with closed door after closed door. In adoptions falling through at the last minute. In infertility crushing dreams.

And if we counted the saints who’ve come before us? The list would fill books.

{all belongs to God and all is in His hands}

To live is Christ.

It is a scary thing to hold your hands open to Christ, to say, “Yes, Lord!” I fear it.

I fear the pain and grief. I struggle with the loss I’ve known and fear what more He may ask of me. Could I take it? Would I be able to stand, kneel, pray amid the suffering?

I can’t remember a trial or a pain he did not recycle to bring me gain. I can’t remember one single regret in serving God only and trusting his hand. This is my anthem, this is my song, the theme of the stories I’ve heard for so long. God has been faithful, he will be again. His loving compassion, it knows no end.

Sara Groves, He’s Always Been Faithful

This, this makes my heart stutter. I’ve known God’s goodness in blessing and pain. I don’t always understand it, I can’t always explain it, but I know, “the nearness of my God is good.”

I’ve heard it said, “God is not safe, but he is good.” But what do you do when you want God to be safe and good? And safe by your own definition?

More often than not, I want to live as Christ in ways that make me feel good…in comfort, in predictability, in success, in control. Knowing that open-handed living means I am utterly not in control is scary.

{what I often forget is, whether I think it or not, ultimately, I am never in control. it is but an illusion}

But I want to be willingly vulnerable to all the Lord has for me. I want to…and in the same breath I fear His faithfulness. It is His faithfulness that scares me, to trust in the Sovereign God and not fear what he may give or take from me is how I long to live as Christ.

He’s not a master demanding servitude, he’s not a vindicative father saying, “I told you so,” he’s not a teacher teaching me a lesson. He is the Just, Abba who sees me.

And still, I see Jesus bent over in the garden, beads of blood furrowed on his brow dropping to the ground, praying fervently, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Your be done.” His open embrace meant his life.

To live is Christ. To be willingly, not just accepting, but truly willing to say with open arms, “Your will be done for the good of the Kingdom, for Your glory, and for my life.”

That is, for me, to live as Christ.

What hinders you “to live as Christ”?