When my soul is thirsty.

These past several years have been the first since kindergarten that I have not been in a formal school setting. I realized how much I enjoyed the structure of a school system after it's season had passed. For me, this transition to full time work & having the crutch of college removed was not as seamless as I had envisioned. In light of this I acquired several hobbies in hopes of keeping myself free from an intellectual crisis. One of these hobbies was photography.

To say that I am a novice photographer would be generous. This I am learning as most of my pictures turn out too blurred, too bright or in the missed opportunities of shooting a smile or burst of laughter from leaving my lens cap on. This art is something, like most worthwhile things, which is difficult at first. Yet ever once in a thousand pictures I capture something that leaves me thankful. Sometimes I take a picture, seemingly by accident, that leaves me in awe. I hardly feel responsible for taking the picture at all. It was as if my soul was thirsty & from the picture it drew water to drink. There are other senses & mediums that do this for me as well; music, art, literature... All leaving me wildly thankful or peaceful or full of praise.

As I have done before I will steal an illustration from C.S. Lewis to help explain what I am getting at. In his autobiography Lewis uses the scent of a flower to illustrate the joy that God offers us. Joy is but the scent of the flower but what our heart really desires is to find the flower itself. While Lewis spent a large portion of his life in pursuit of joy he realized that the joy was really just pointing to God Himself. Frequently I find myself desiring great things; love, freedom, joy, grace & so on. Yet the greatest of all things is to desire Jesus Himself, not just the fruits & gifts He offers me. Lewis was reminded that the joy he possessed from Christ was there draw him closer to Christ. Jesus was the point all along. When we are pointed to God each fruit does it's work.

David understands this thirst for God. He wrote of it in his Psalm 143.

"I spread out my hand to you;

my soul thirsts for you like

a parched land." (v.6)

As I catch the sun setting it draws my mind to the One who causes it to set. When my camera is aimed at someone I love it leaves me in awe that He would make such beauty. He is continually quenching my thirst with His truth & beauty. It is all around me. But the truth is that the soul will drink in almost anything. When my soul draws in anything but Jesus it will thirst again. What my soul thirsts for & ultimately what I pour into it will not easily leave & we need help not drinking the poisons of the world. Perhaps this is why Solomon warns, "Above all else, guard our heart for it is the wellspring of life."

"You and I," Lewis wrote, "have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us." - See more at: http://glennpackiam.typepad.com/my_weblog/2014/02/on-going-to-church.html#sthash.8YjI2IFK.mOSM22Ah.dpufis is a reason Solomon warns, "Above all else, gaurd your heart for it is the wellspring of life."

"You and I," Lewis wrote, "have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us." - See more at: http://glennpackiam.typepad.com/my_weblog/2014/02/on-going-to-church.html#sthash.8YjI2IFK.mOSM22Ah.dpuf

I pray when we thirst we would spread out our hands to Him. I hope we drink of the living water found in Jesus, the water that will leave us never thirsting again. & when we see a picture that stirs us we give Him glory, when we hear a song that moves us we give Him praise, when we fall in love it is because of Christ's love for us.

"You and I," Lewis wrote, "have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us." - See more at: http://glennpackiam.typepad.com/my_weblog/2014/02/on-going-to-church.html#sthash.8YjI2IFK.mOSM22Ah.dpuf

"You and I," Lewis wrote, "have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us." - See more at: http://glennpackiam.typepad.com/my_weblog/2014/02/on-going-to-church.html#sthash.8YjI2IFK.mOSM22Ah.dpuf

"You and I," Lewis wrote, "have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us." - See more at: http://glennpackiam.typepad.com/my_weblog/2014/02/on-going-to-church.html#sthash.8YjI2IFK.mOSM22Ah.dpuf

"You and I," Lewis wrote, "have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us." - See more at: http://glennpackiam.typepad.com/my_weblog/2014/02/on-going-to-church.html#sthash.8YjI2IFK.mOSM22Ah.dpuf

"You and I," Lewis wrote, "have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us." - See more at: http://glennpackiam.typepad.com/my_weblog/2014/02/on-going-to-church.html#sthash.8YjI2IFK.mOSM22Ah.dpuf

"You and I," Lewis wrote, "have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us." - See more at: http://glennpackiam.typepad.com/my_weblog/2014/02/on-going-to-church.html#sthash.8YjI2IFK.mOSM22Ah.dpuf

"You & I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness that has been laid upon us." -C.S. Lewis

Death could not.

Part Four: Time and Eternity-Emily Dickinson

XXVII

BECAUSE I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,	5
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;	10
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,	15
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’t is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.	20

Ever since we have been gifted life we have been infatuated with the idea of death. With almost everyone seemingly desiring more life this particular infatuation is ironic, really.

Across the Judeo-Christian world, as well as through many major religions, there is undeniable evidence of a fixation on death within a genre of writings known as apocalyptic literature, or in other words, how all things will end. In the last century alone hundreds of books, poems & even movies have been produced in this area. It would be no stretch to name at least one piece of art, literature or cinema that has left us wondering our own end or has made some attempt to portray it. It seems that America is especially interested in the preventing of death & often lives beneath a doctrine that preaches a false sense of invincibility in our flesh. But the truth is simply stated by an author I have long since forgot the name of, "No man can say with certainty he will be alive tomorrow." If you sit right now thinking you will certainly be alive tomorrow, you have no perspective into the miracle that is your every breath.

But what to make of death? What to think of such a mystery as this?

We will certainly achieve it, that is without question. As I spent the past several years working at the bedside in a hospital I have heard innumerable questions surface as the reality of death peers in the rooms of the sick.

How will it happen?

Will it be painful?

But the biggest of all.

What comes next?

When I spent years of my life trying to answer these questions through a lens of the world I was left in despair. There was no hope for me in the teachings of the world but when I met Jesus all that changed. What He taught me was not only true but it resonated with me in a way that spurred my spirit to hope again.

Jesus told me in the world I would find trouble. I have found it, again & again. Then He reminds to take heart when I reside in Him, for He has overcome the world. He has overcome death itself.

Paul wrote that the wages of sin is death & by all accounts, death is what I deserve because of my sin. Yet Paul continues on & says, "But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

As I have walked these streets, as I have sat on the bedside of persons much older than myself in their last moments we share many of the burdens of the world & hopes in Jesus. We have tasted much of the same death & addiction. We have been touched by the same decay & loneliness. But every once & awhile we share the same hope of eternal life offered in Jesus. I have seen someone in their last hours of life hold onto more hope than a youth that lives with a physical vibrancy & spiritual dissonance.  Jesus took unto Himself all the sin & death that was meant for me & you while He hung on that cross. When He took away sin, He took away our death. He paid the ransom of our souls.

Yet death, in one way or another, still exists. But it becomes a choice rather than simply the end of the road. We choose whether we die to ourselves & our own desires to live for Him or we choose to deny the freedom Christ offers us & walk down the road to old age, disease or the innumerable ways our flesh is destroyed.  We can turn our backs to salvation, to genuine freedom to which their is no comparison or we can accept a gift, which none of our works can earn. Then when we deny our very flesh to accept Jesus's gift for us, death is swallowed. When we share in death with Jesus, accept His gift to us, death in our lives is defeated. Our soul that was was once destined for ruin is now liberated into the crown of life that God offers those who love Him.

When we return to dust, we will be raised up again in Christ Jesus. The perishable will be exchanged for the imperishable. Then no longer will we know death. We will be home in eternity where death could not be.
 

"Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed--  in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."  

" Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"  
  
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. "
(1 Corinthians 15:51-57)