“That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.” (Philippians 3:10)
Yes, this is what I want, or is it what I think that I want? I want resurrection power in first hand experience, in our home and in our ministry. I don’t want to settle for human efforts and human results. I want the same power that raised Jesus from the grave to be working in me and in the hearts around me. So I started praying…
“Jesus, just swallow me up.”
Ministry and parenting had been uncomfortable, but the conviction was growing, that the solution wasn’t comfort but total surrender to discomfort. So I started praying that five word prayer. And then ministry and parenting became agony.
I still feel surprised by the result of my prayer. I guess I thought when I was praying for such noble things that I would experience a succession of victories. Isn’t that silly? How does one experience the power of His resurrection without first experiencing death? It’s right there in the verse, “and may share His sufferings, becoming like him in his death.”
This past year has given us a thousand chances to die. Which has led me to another prayer…
“Jesus, help me stay on the cross.”
I have thought many times, “We don’t have to do this. We could just walk away.” But I know deep down that God’s call to this time and place and body has not been lifted. So the crawling off the cross is more subtle. I want to hide. Everything in me wants to throw up walls and isolate. Then I go back to the first prayer, “Jesus, just swallow me up”, and I obey one small step at a time. I welcome the seekers, invite people to dinner, and make plans to meet ladies for coffee. I try to lean in, look people in the eye, and push myself because I know if I don’t I will let pain turn me inward. I remind myself that heavy-hearted obedience can be a greater sacrifice to the Lord than the easy, lighthearted kind.
Being heavy hearted though – it isn’t the same thing as being hopeless. And this is the hope – we don’t just share in Christ’s death, we share in His resurrection. So this is my third prayer…
“Jesus, turn these thousand deaths into a thousand resurrections.”
I’m just starting to see it. These resurrections feel like my daffodils peeking up out of the cold earth at the beginning of spring. In all this cold brownness, new life unfolds, delicate and yet bright, a tiny resurrection, an answer to prayer, someone who pauses to say, “thank you,” a new believer’s smile. I gather these resurrections like flowers, and write them down because I know the next prayer, the last prayer.
“Jesus, give me the courage to keep dying.”
I’m sure no matter how many years we are in ministry we will continue to experience this mingling of death and resurrection, because this is how we really come to know Him, this is the real Christian life.
Taking it Further:
Have you underestimated the realities of sharing in Christ’s sufferings? In what ways are you tempted to crawl off the cross you are called to carry? What is God’s grace to you in the middle of sharing in Christ’s sufferings?