COME & DIE

German martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”  What a beautiful quote, huh?  So profound and radical.  But when was the last time I really died? 

My average day consists of me trying to stay alive, not by mere subsistence, but with excess, comfort, and predictable outcomes.  Planning for the temporal tomorrow often takes the place of planning for the eternal tomorrow.  Based on what God has communicated to me, I can begin to make appropriate plans of how to live today and tomorrow.  If I’m true to these directions, however, I’ll soon realize that obedience demands less ‘knowing of the future’ and more vulnerability, faith, and trust in the One who I’m allowing to organize my itinerary – the One whose slave I have become.  Am I creating room for God to make my plans for me?  If I’m surrendered to him and claim obedience to him, why am I always trying to figure out a logical strategy of how to serve him?  Shouldn’t I, instead, concentrate my efforts on listening more closely to what he is telling me to do?  If he takes me to a place that resembles death, surely I wouldn’t have gone there on my own accord, but only in obedience to his wise command.  Yet it’s ironic that, only in this death is there full life.  My prayer is that each day I ask myself how I can die in certain ways to myself so that Christ may fill me with his life.  That I would die in ways that would allow God to bring life to others.  Easier said than done.  God help me.