A Letter From God

おにぎり, Unsplash

Why my child, do you live as if I do not understand your life?

That I do not see you are scrambling, anxious, frantic, sleepless?

Did the sun not rise this morning?

And when you least expected it, a reprieve or a kindness came?

Or did you fail to notice how the birds sing despite the heat and the infringement of their habitats?

anonymous, piqsels

As the world careens towards its implosion, the prime of my creation - humans made in My Image - will suffer the most, while the rest of creation will do their best - hunting, mating with flair and flourish, resting and repeating it all over.

Men and women, however,  will do far worse. Some will no doubt plod on, even doing their utmost to avert catastrophe and inject goodness into the decay. But most will be out for themselves, heaping hurt and scars on souls and all terrains, physical, psychosocial, and eternal.

My child, I am not blind to the state of the world. My son, Jesus Christ, came to live like one of you. He had a human body that got tired, hungry, stirred, and tempted. He had the full range of emotions and plenty of expectations from all ranks and file. He lived a real life.

He also died a real death, and an excruciatingly painful one, the details of which I don’t want to repeat.

The question is, “Why?”. You may ask: Why did Jesus have to come and be one of us?

He lived a real life because life is holy, special, and precious. Your life is.

You can see in his life, how it was easy for him to be someone else, to submit to the powerful systems of the day, to play along, or to turn into a coward. Those were actual options, for him, as they are for you.

Some of you feel you have no choice. No, you do. You always do.

You can see, in his death – amidst all the injustice – how one could die angry, reluctant, frightened, or, die at peace.

My son came to show you life, and how to live it.

And he died so you can see how to die, in a world that may demand your life and cause your death.

He came to show you that Life is more than living, and that even death cannot take Life away.

Rajagopal, Wikimedia commons

So I want you, my child, to wake up each day, and breathe large lungfuls of Life into your being.

Look at that never-ending to-do list, the unresolved conflicts, the eye bags, the lightly lined purse – and say, even so, I shall Live.

Then you shall no longer merely know that I number your hair, and supply your needs. You shall experience it!

I have saints whose lives showcase Life -

their diets will appall many of you in the first world;

their solitary lives will shock many of you in the connected world;

their fruitfulness will overturn your ideas of productivity and fulfillment.

Yes, you are quick to protest that you are not one of these saints.

Well, I mean you to be.

Because I am Life and that is what I want for you.

Most of you won’t need to leave where you live, or stop what you do.

Some of you won’t require major changes to your lives.

But many of you must consider if you are truly, really, living – the Life – Jesus modelled, and the Life he died to so you may have…. 

a Life of freedom –

from lust and shame;

from abusing others and being abused;

from fear.

In considering this, you will come to see that your ladder has been leaning against the wrong wall.

Parents may have to give up their careers, to be home with the young lives entrusted to them.

Professionals may have to reconfigure their work vision to see that in the end, their work is about life – that staff meetings, colleagues, products, deadlines are about actual, real lives. 

Pastors may have to learn to speak up for those whose lives and work conditions reduce their humanity.

You may have to change your agendas, tune your expectations, and extend your timelines.

I know the future is so uncertain and can feel so bleak. But I am GOD and I hold the world in my hands. I especially hold my saints.

Again, if you hang on to your life (small ‘l’), my Son told you that you would lose it.

So stop building the life (small ‘l’) you want.

Start praying for a desire for Life, and if you have asked Jesus to be your Saviour and LORD, the Life is already there, like a seed ripening...

Protect and nourish that seed, and see Life springing up – despite the second law of thermodynamics and all of everything going downhill. It’s a paradox, a surprise, and a mystery. Life.

But you are apt to miss it if you refuse to slow, savour and serve.