Trust is an essential ingredient for true living. There is the initial decision to trust God through Christ's redemptive work, allowing Him to assume control of my life as well as my eternity. There is the discipline to trust moment by moment as I grow in grace and knowledge of the truth.
However, something must precede my decision to trust God at some particular point in time; something must be motivating me to continually seek Him. Why would I want to trust Him? Why would I want to trust Him more... or again?
Experiential moments cannot define doctrine per se, yet somehow there seem to be special moments when God meets with me. The memories of those moments whet my appetite for more. Not that He comes and goes. He is the constant in the equation and I am the variable. He is always there, I am the one swaying randomly around Him on the periphery; once in a while our paths seem to intersect.
There is a hunger inside of me that does not let me go.
Pity those whose hunger is untamed, about passions, self-serving. Their insides are good when their outsides are good. The absence of outside stimuli returns them to the vapid boredom which inwardly they are... It is their inner baseline... It is a clueless inner nakedness that must be masked, run from. The way that some live in the present reveals what direction the feeding process is moving... from the outside in. When they turn the last bedroom light out at night and crawl under the covers, it is still busy and noisy and dark inside of them.
It is no fun watching people try to make order and quiet happen around them, thinking that that will help to bring order and quiet to their insides. Some people keep trying and trying. They should wake up and smell the roses. There is an inner hunger that only one thing can satisfy. Otherwise, it keeps coming back, more voracious and undiscriminating than before.
The hunger that I most need to distinguish from the rest must be from God. It must be God. It ought to be considered a gift of grace. I wish I could put a leash on it and tame it.
From whence this hunger, this spark of urgency, to cultivate a life within? It comes from a place that we tend to hide from, that we do not want to own, that we do not let ourselves talk about in mixed company.
The starting point has to be a conscious recognition of our own essential aloneness.
Part of the ice cold harshness of accompanying a loved one on their final journey is having to watch them slip out of our grasp, forced to go the hardest part, the homestretch... alone.
Whoa, death someone would pray
Could you wait to call me another day
The children prayed, the preacher preached
Time and mercy is out of your reach
I'll fix your feet til you cant walk
I'll lock your jaw til you cant talk
I'll close your eyes so you can't see
This very hour, come and go with me
I'm death I come to take the soul
Leave the body and leave it cold
To draw up the flesh off of the frame;
Dirt and worm both have a claim
Brutal, I know, but who will you be and what will you have when the outside stimuli are gone? or worse... when they are still there but your ability to absorb and utilize them wanes and dies? Who are you, without props, stripped down to your bare naked self?
It's important.
When you come down to your final homestretch, I won't be able to help you... even if I love you, even if I persevere in my vigil by your bedside ... even if I hold your hand... even if I whisper a prayer in your ear... even if we are surrounded by people who care. You will slip away, whether I want you to or not. And you will be on your own.
Alone.
Unless...
Unless you died before you die. If you are already dead, I think that it should not hurt as much to die.
I can't make you as essentially "unalone" as you need to be. I can't make you see it or hunger for it. So, I will just tell you and hope that God enables you to see it.
If you allow Jesus into your heart, you will be complete. "And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power..." (Col 2:10) The recognition that you have died with Christ ought to be a grounding principle... something to keep your spiritual feet on the ground. "I died with Christ" is not just a pretty sounding phrase; it is the foundation of our hope; the solid ground on which we stand. You died with Christ, yet you live.
"On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.’"My Hope is Built"
No more empty space to fill. You will never feel hunger in quite the same way again. Most of all, you will not be alone at the very end. Plus, it will not even be the end. You will awaken in His presence. You have never been as wide awake and alive as you will be then.
Forget about being alone ever again. "...your life is hid with Christ in God. (Col 3:3) In those horrible homestretch moments, we grieve, but we try to remember Paul's words: “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.” (1Th 4:13)
The God of the homestretch.
That's who we serve! Our loved one who knew Christ did not slip away alone in the dark, they did not die abandoned or forgotten. Much to the contrary, this is where our Savior shows his stuff. He is the one prying our fingers away and taking charge of the final ferrying job. "Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand." (Psalms 73:23)
Consider your own final passage. Are you afraid you will die alone? Hungry for you know not what? Have you not yet quelled your fears?
Then it's time to get a life.
“The Lord Jesus Christ [be] with thy spirit...” (2Ti 4:22)
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