The Throne and the Cross

Well, the opening sentence of the chapter already had me nailed......"In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds".

If there was any a week to struggle through quite, reflective, time consuming meditation it was this one! It has been a chaotic week, filled with noise, hurry and crowds. It was ironic, but yet I knew it was profoundly purposeful. God's trying to tell me....slow the heck down..

Ultimately, there was two things Christ revealed to me through meditation. First, I think it brought me back into the realization that He is God, He is everything, He is present, and He is on the throne. I think I can get so easily caught up in whats going on all around me, and I get so easily caught up in my feelings, desires, fears, and deadlines. To be quite honest, I have been so painfully selfish. Me focused and kind of lost in it. My mediation with God, put me back in the right state of mind. Its all about Him! I mean, isn't it He what I live for? And that realization has reminded me that He is on the throne and He is my God! My petty issues and fears mean nothing in light of the realization that He is everything and He holds my life in his hands! Fosters line is so epic, "Meditation is the one thing that can sufficiently redirect our lives so that we can deal with human life successfully" (p. 22). Bam!

Secondly, during my mediation time I kept envisioning this Cross scene. Christ was hanging on the cross, as I was pulling mine up the hill. Once I got to the top, these men were struggling to hold me down so that they could nail me to it. And as I looked up to see Christ's face, he said "Look what I've done for you". As if saying, "Now do it for others". So I swallowed hard, laded down, was nailed to the board and placed at my post. Once hanging there, I looked down to find Christ standing near my feet, and stating "Stef, you must die". He broke my legs and allowed me to die. - (yes, I know this sounds familiar in Sonshine, I'm just being reminded of it again).

This may sound terribly sad. But I think Christ was reminding me of truths once forgotten. I have been living in such a selfish way that I forgot the call on my life. Christ calls me to pick up my cross and follow him no matter how hard it is. To loose my life, and I will find it. I'm called to die to myself for the sake of others. (John 12:24 -"Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds). What have I been doing? Certainly nothing remotely close to that!

Lastly, I just wanted to add that the phrase, "loose your life" has been so big for me. Christ has been calling me to let go for a while now. I try to control life, make plans, and arrange things the way I think is best. But Christ is calling me...calling all of us to loose our lives. Loose the lives we plan and control, and we will find the lives Christ has for us. Lives that will look different, but lives that are profoundly good and right! At this point in my life I'm being reminded, that the life Christ has for me is so much better then anything I can ever construct. Why do I fight it? I'm trying to live this week by loosing my life and letting go...in the hope of finding it.

Much love,
Stef

P.S. I do not think its a coincidence that our next chapter is on Pray, in light of interviews starting!! Remember what our knees are for....