Day 169 - In The Garden

Thoughts that have come from various quotes taken from the book, "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim Based Society" by John H. Hovis. Click here to link directly to the audio file.

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"You see, “have to” goes against that eternal part of us that was made to live free forever."

As quoted from the book "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society" by John H. Hovis Page 178.

I had a friend whom was at the end of his life. He was one of those guys who had lived a long, exciting and amazing life to boot. The end seemed to be dragging out as often happens for those who are just ready to go. This friend knew he was going to heaven and was tired. He was tired of being sick and just wanted to rest in the arms of His God. But, the end was so slow in coming.

We were sitting talking one afternoon in his room at the hospice where he was waiting to die. He said to me, "Why is it so hard to die?" What a great question. I really didn't have a good answer for him - he probably wasn't looking for an answer anyway. Sometimes just talking helps get the frustration level down to where we can manage it at times.

Since that conversation, I have thought long and hard about my friend's question. I think I know why passing from this life can be such a tedious endeavor. We were made to live for ever. You see, God made us to live in the Garden of Eden and dwell with Him for all eternity. Sin, through disobedience came into the picture and everything changed. One of the biggest changes was the fact that death would be part of the lives of every living creature on earth. What a shock to the system that change was.

Can you imagine how our bodies reacted to that kind of change? One moment every cell in our being was wired to make life happen in ways we can only dream about today. The next moment decay started happening. Just thinking of that massive change saddens my heart so. I think that is but a fraction of the pain God feels over this situation.

Here's what the Bible says about how God feels about the pain that His Children feel.

Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;
    I mourn, and horror grips me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
    for the wound of my people?
Oh, that my head were a spring of water
    and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night
    for the slain of my people. Jeremiah 8:21-9:1 (NIV)

What a powerful view into the throne-room of God. Oh how He misses you and me. It's no wonder He would do all He has done to make a way for us - to make it possible for us to live in the status of a victor even though we have done so much to reject Him. Simply put, He Loves Us!

That's why He hates the things we turn to in this world to try and fill that empty feeling we have as a result of being out of the Garden. Nothing will ever replace Him. Yet, we continue to try. This just prolongs our agony as we attempt to find ourselves in ways God never intended for us to even try.

As we get caught in the trap of relying on this world to make us feel we are OK that place of eternity that is in us all cries out in ways that make us think we have no hope. Reality is, that apart from God we don't have any hope. He is the only balm for the pain we feel at being stuck in a finite situation with infinite possibility bubbling just under the surface of our lives.

That's what made me think that it being hard to die is such a natural course of action. We were never meant to die and our bodies fight for all they are worth to try and keep us alive even when we are ready to go home.

What does all this have to do with the discussion of victor living verses victim thinking? Pretty simple - victim thinking, like death, was never suppose to be what this body would ever experience. We were made to live in a place filled with a perpetual reality of victor living. Instead we are trapped, for a time, in a place where we have to fight to try and make sense of what victor living could be given all the things that comes against us in victimizing ways.

What's a victor to do? I believe we are to live this life with as much passion, zeal and ambition as God gives us. Live life fully, not to prove we are victors, but to show the rest of the world that there is more than just what we do here with this short time we have here in this life.

For now we have to live with the belief that we are victors even when our circumstances seem to be saying otherwise. But, rest assured. That kind of belief won't be required when we are taken back to the Garden of eternity. There our bodies will live forever and our status as a victor won't be something we will ever be tempted to work for. In the meantime, we get up, take another step, believe we are all God says we are and do what is before us with the joy of knowing that we are loved by this God that calls us His Children.