Survival is Victory

It’s true sometimes. I’ve blogged lately about fire, how we Christians, we followers of Christ, we brave few, are called to at times to follow our Savior right through it. In the fire, ugly things get burned clean off us. The loving masculine hand of Christ guides us into these brave places where life and death walk naked and can be seen for what they are. Here, survival is victory.

The first time Jesus Christ leads a man through the furnace of His severe and fearsome love, it feels like the end of all things. The universe tilts, the earth wobbles on its axis. But like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, when we’re plunged into the flames we find it a kind of sanctuary, a baptism that cleanses us from those things that overshadow us: the past and its power to condemn, addictions, habits, ruts of behavior. We find in the fire, for the first time, that there is peace. The blaze of our Savior’s gaze—His undivided attention, so unbearable for those who have not yet bent the knee—is ultimate catharsis. It is the homecoming for which we all hunger, whether we know it or not.

We soon find in the fire that there is nothing to fear there. When we emerge on the other side, burnished clean and glowing, we find ourselves stronger, lighter, bolder. Less apt to waver. Not led about by whim and fancy. We know our purpose, we know who we are, we have beheld the magnificence of the only wise God, and we are forever changed. Fear slides off us now. What once might have bowed our backs, crippled our knees, and melted our hearts is now as nothing. Our perspective has changed; we know now what matters because we have looked death in the face and seen there is nothing there to fear.

And we sing a new song. One that cannot begin to express the measure of pain we have felt. It is pain that matters a great deal, because we bear the marks of Christ on our hearts now; we are bound to Him in fellowship, in brotherhood, in understanding—because we have walked the same paths, have we not? Our new song is one of love, but even this song won’t do enough to prove our love for Him. We firewalkers will not stop short of pouring out our lives for the One we have beheld in the quiet place of the crucible. We are not the same as we were before.

We will never be the same. The embrace of God is an irrevocable thing. For those who know, for those who have heard His call, there is nothing else that will ever satisfy. Nothing. For us, when we say I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, we know it’s true because we have lived it. Not because of us. But because of the One who reveals Himself in the fire, who strips everything away but Himself, His everything-presence, the One who has overshadowed All, the One who showed us that survival is victory. What remains is pure.

Branches Fall From Trees

If you’re not a Christian, you’ll find this really depressing, but life here on earth is full of missed chances, failures, Pyrrhic victories, testing, challenges, decay, death, destruction, rot, theft, war, disease, and it’s over in the blink of an eye.

If you are a Christian, you’ll take solace in the following: that even though all of the above is true enough, God is big enough to fill bottomless holes, His life provides meaning and context to what appears to be insanity, and you’re not stuck here. You’re a sojourner. That means your citizenship isn’t here. It’s elsewhere. Somewhere safe, let’s say.

These things were running through my mind the other night on one of my walks. Normally my time spent with God is pretty lively. There’s a lot of idea exchange going on, lots of dialogue. But not this time. This time it was quiet, and I told Him, look, you don’t have to say anything, and I’m not asking for anything. I just want to be near you. So we just hung out as I did laps around the track.

I reflected on how so many of my friends are going through fire right now, be it marriages ending or the loss of a loved one—or helping an elderly person finish with honor at the end of a long and fruitful life. Whatever the case may be, people are going through the fire right now. The economic outlook is rubbish, jobs are hard to come by, and the American family has never been under more direct frontal assault. I reflected on all that, and it distilled into the first two paragraphs of this article. For those who are not in Christ, good luck: you’ll need it. You may want to consider making up your own mind about Him rather than swallowing all the usual lies whole. For those of us who know from experience, He changes random coincidence into orderly miracles. And it happens every day.

Yeah, branches fall from trees. People sometimes get hurt. More often we hurt each other, and that’s shitty. There’s really no other way to say it, because that word fits like no other right there. I’m here to tell you that there’s more. And that’s all. And I’d like you to be encouraged.

Because in Christ, all that pain and suffering is not pointless. What we do for Jesus Christ is not in vain. It doesn’t have to be as big as a Billy Graham Crusade. It can be Mother Teresa small. It could be as simple as standing firm for your young family and scraping for yet another dead end job, because if that’s what God has provided for you in this season, He’ll also help you understand how to find joy in it. Satisfaction. Contentment. It’s not something you settle for, it’s something for which warriors contend, and the most awesome of these is the single mother. She is a fearsome thing, let me tell you.

So stand strong, all you Christian Warriors. Life here can be pointless, sure. Certainly from our limited perspective it is. Branches fall from trees, there is no warning. But from the other side, coming from where we can’t see, there’s meaning and life and love and the deepest empathy. We caterpillars, toward the end of our first lives, are drawn into the chrysalis and changed. When we emerge, though… triumphant… everything will be different. Like nothing we’ve ever imagined.