There
are times when we find ourselves living lives of quiet desperation. We may feel
like we are slaves living futile lives in an unpredictable and uncaring world. We
feel unloved and we yearn to be loved. This leads us to become addicts to
anything that will satisfy our hunger for love. We feel helpless and like Paul,
we find ourselves doing the things that we do not want to do and unable to do
the things that we want to do. We struggle with guilt and we wonder, as Paul
did, “who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?”
(Romans 7:18-19). We are physically alive but spiritually dead.
At
such times some people, like the actor Robin Williams, are driven to seek
suicide as a way out when they cannot find any meaning in life or are
overwhelmed by their problems. Harry Emerson Fosdick drew attention to the
truth that every person, sooner or later will find themselves in a “valley of
decision” where the “death-wish” and the “life-wish” confront each other.
At
such times, we are tempted to give up on life as a defeated person instead of
seeing ourselves as God’s masterpieces in the making. But the good news is that
we can use our difficulties, problems and limitations to become a new creation
in Christ. We can be “dying to live” a life of redeeming love.
Dr.
Tien-Sheng Hsu, a Taiwanese psychiatrist found that the root cause of cancer in
his patients lies in their lack of self-acceptance and self-worth. He
encouraged his patients to see cancer not as a death sentence but as a turning
point for change in their outlook on life. He asks his patients to reflect on the
following questions:
“If
you do not work hard now;
if
you do not live to certain standards;
if
you do not live for the sake of other people;
if
you do not care much about peoples’ opinions of your behavior,
what
will you do?
Can
you accept your own setbacks and non-endeavour?”
He
defined failure as a form of success. Failure has been described as the runway
to success. Dr. Tien makes the point that a temporary failure does not mean
that a person is worthless. Unfortunately our modern society encourages only
success and equates failure with being worthless. But life is full of ups and
downs. When we accept only success but not failure, we will be very unhappy
people.
We
are all imperfect with a tendency to fall in our spiritual walk. To grow
spiritually, we need to take Steps 1-3 of the Twelve Steps and live a lifestyle
of repentance. We can acknowledge our helplessness with the hope that Christ is
our Redeemer. Christ came to set us free from guilt that keeps us in slavery to
sin and death.
Living
a lifestyle of repentance is not paying attention to ourselves and trying to
improve ourselves by our self effort. Such an exercise will only lead to an
obsession with ourselves instead of “getting ourselves off our hands.” The
objective of repentance is to increase our self-awareness and learning to
accept ourselves as being imperfect but with the potential to be perfect as
children of God.
The
blood of Christ set us free to live as the children of God with the freedom to
love ourselves and to love others as ourselves. We will not live up to the
expectations of the world when we are seeking the perfect will and agape love of
God for our lives. The discipline of repentance helps us to reflect on our
lives each day to ask God to show us the attitude of self-criticism, the
tendency to blame others and our hidden fears that we need to overcome each
day.
Repentance
is not feeling sorry for our misbehaviors. It is the coming to our senses that
we have turned away from God and how much we are in need of His mercy and
grace. It is acknowledging that we are spiritually blind and in need for
healing for our spiritual blindness.
Jesus
started his ministry with a water baptism by John the Baptist. This is the
acknowledgment of the sinfulness of our human nature. The sense of guilt is
more than our disobedience to God's laws - it is the consequence of sin in our
human nature. The good news is that through baptism we have the means of grace
to live a new life in Christ that is free from guilt.
We
do not have to die physically to live spiritually. We can die to self through
the baptism of our suffering so that we may be reborn to a new life in Christ.
We can live our lives as the children of our loving Heavenly Father seeking to
bring honour to His name. This is the zoe life.
