The Crucified Life

 “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."

Matthew 16:24

"Jesus has many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, but few bearers of His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who desire tribulation. He finds many companions of His table, but few of His abstinence. All desire to rejoice with Him, but few are willing to endure anything for Him or with Him. Many follow Jesus to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the cup of His passion. Many revere His miracles, but few follow the humiliation of His cross."

Thomas A Kempis

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a septuagenarian (older than me) friend. It had been a couple of years since I had seen him, and I ran into him at a memorial service. He's one of those men who doesn't mess around. So after giving me a great big hug he looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Are you OK?"

So I went through the usual drill about my weight.  Quite unintentionally I had lost quite a few pounds, so much that size zero’s were drooping on my hips.  It got to the point where I had to shop in the juniors department.  

"No, I don't have an eating disorder," I sighed knowing he probably wouldn’t believe me.   

"I didn't try to lose weight."

"Yes, I have been to the doctor and he says I'm perfectly healthy."

But this time there was a little whisper inside me, and I realized that for whatever reason God was asking me to crack open the vault a bit. He asked me if I was going through depression, and all the questions that go along with that.

"Do you sleep?"

“Sometimes.”

"Can you take care of your kids?"

 To which you say, as any mother does, "Yes," and then think, "Though I'm sure I could be doing better."

I took a deep breath and said, "Look, I'm not depressed, but I am walking through something really hard...so hard that it is affecting me physically.  Here's the thing...I'm pretty sure God is asking me to walk it...so you can't fix it."

He gave me the look I have gotten so many times in this journey.   It's a look full of compassion that says, "You are so gifted, so tender-hearted, so full of potential...I'm not sure what got you off-course, but we just need  to do whatever it takes to get you back on track so you can be happy and fulfilled and serve God again.  It says, “We want the old you back, the one that we all loved.”

Why are we always trying to rescue each other from the hard stuff? Jesus tells us that whoever would follow after him would have to take up a cross. How many people have tried to get me to take drugs, to see somebody who might be able to fix me, to exorcise the demons out of me, encourage me to find a new hobby...

Only a few have sat in the dark with me...and even fewer have stayed.

So he called me the following week. And he says this, "You know Becky, there is no temptation except that which is common to man. Temptation means test. So whatever you are dealing with cannot be uncommon to man. God isn't going to bring something into your life that is unique just to you."

At that moment I couldn't answer him. I mean, I kind of agreed with his theology, but I didn't know how to reconcile it with my journey. I don't know anyone who has walked what I believe God is asking me to walk.   I certainly couldn't point to chapter and verse.   I could feel the wounds in my spirit beginning to bleed with the hopeless feeling like I couldn't go forward and I couldn't go back. So I did what I have learned to do when I didn’t know how to reconcile God's Spirit within me with God's written Word.

I asked Him.

Then in the ways that I have become accustomed to seeing God work, He led me to a number of things that were helpful to me. The most important was a book called Contemplating the Cross. Through it the Spirit led me to a deep understanding of my journey in light of the gospel. My understanding did not come from chapter and verse, it came from the story of the crucifixion.

I had glimpses of understanding this before, but deep clarity began to set in. The journey that I have been walking is the path asked of every woman, every man. It is the path of the cross. Finally, I understood that my circumstances were the context for my crucifixion.

I had been well aware that my soul had been grieved to the point of death, that I had chosen to stay alive when a selfish death would have been much easier, that I had chosen the Father's will over my own pain, that I had undergone the terrible trauma of the garden, the abandonment and betrayal of man and the sense of isolation and tearing apart from all that I knew of God. I knew that I had been crushed by the Father's own hand, I knew that I had died for the sake of another, and I knew that I was waiting for resurrection. But for the first time I understood why.

 I understood the deep blessing that had been given me. And I sat in front of the cross in the chapel and I was overcome with wonder. It wasn't the wonder that you feel when you see something beautiful that makes you feel warm and tingly. It was the kind where you sit in a sort of stunned silence at a revelation so deep it quiets you to the core. I couldn't even wrap my head around it. But I knew it to be true. I knew that what I had been given was a great gift. It was the gift of the fellowship of the cross. I sat there feeling the depth of all that I had walked in my crucifixion, and the height of gratitude that God has brought me thus far, and is still bringing me through.

We've done a fairly good job in the church of talking about the redemption of the cross: Christ dying for us as our complete deliverance from the curse of sin. But I believe the church has missed teaching about the fellowship of the cross: Christ taking us up to die with Him and making us partakers of the fellowship of His death. It is because the crucified Jesus lives in us that we can live crucified to the world. (Murray)

Here is how Andrew Murray describes it,

"And so they would gradually enter more deeply into the meaning and power of their high calling to live as those who were dead to sin, the world, and self. Each in his own measure would bear the marks of the cross, with its sentence of death on the flesh, with its hating of the self-life and its entire denial of self, and with its growing conformity to the crucified Redeemer in His deep humility and entire surrender of His will to the life of God." (God's Best Secrets, Murray)

There is so much more I could say. If you have time, listen to Foreman's Learning How to Die, or watch a video of it on Youtube.

I'd love to tell you about the resurrection, but I'm not there yet. I'm in the long pause of the tomb. I'm in the emptiness. I'm in the waiting to become. Only God can raise me, though every bit of me wants to fill the emptiness before the third day.

This I know to be true, even though at times I don't feel it to be so:

Jesus is with me.

Jesus is the One who has led me to this place.

Jesus is the One who will bring resurrection.

I am crucified with Christ. I no longer live. But Christ lives within me.

A deep ache presses forth

From this sore and tender core

It scrapes the lining of my soul

A rising, voiceless cry echoes

To the one who pulls me

By the reins of my pain

To his blood-sweated cheek.

And we move through the darkness as one

Lamenting the cost of coming undone

We dance in the dirge of the slow-setting sun

Praying Father, Your will alone be done

A few notes:
The Crucified Life was originally posted on Deep Calls, in March 2008. 
I am preparing to speak before Communion at New Hope this Sunday, and this post reflects what I will be speaking about, I'd thought I'd share it with you who are far away.
I can no longer wear my junior size clothes, but Grace can.
I am no longer in the tomb, here's a link to Louvor, a poem I wrote in January 2010 as I felt myself coming out of that season in my spiritual journey. 
Blessings to you all,
B