There’s a new song on the radio that I’ve pretty much fallen in love with recently. It’s by Hillsong United and is called “Touch the Sky”–and it sure does put me, and my husband too, into worship mode quickly. I’ve found myself listening to it again and again, especially as I struggle to stay focused on what really does matter down here in this life. Life’s daily grind just seems to take so much out of us sometimes, maybe most of the time, that we don’t have energy left over to give to the parts of our lives that will still be there when all else is gone–parts like God and Love and our very souls.
We do indeed seem to live upside down in this realm, which is one of the reasons why I believe so many in my generation and in those behind me have chosen to build their lives upon something other than God. One of the lines that I so love from the song I’ve mentioned above does reflect this notion of life upside down–“I found my life when I laid it down.” Such a thought, which I’ve found to be a reality, seems to be full of contradiction and certainly hasn’t been popular at all in most of the circles I’ve spent time throughout the life I’ve lived down here thus far. I remember being made fun of actually when I did put myself on the line in some way for the sake of someone else. I heard things like, “Really! You’re just being taken advantage of. Do you think they’d do that for you?” Well, is that not the whole point? Isn’t it, after all, good and honorable even to be there for someone else simply because they find themselves in need and not just because we might need something from them one day? If reciprocity is really what’s on our minds, then are we laying our lives down?
I don’t think we are. I think that manner of thinking is a reflection of our ownership of ourselves. But, we are not our own, at least according to Christ we’re not. So, if we find ourselves waiting for some sort of pay back down here, which I too often seem to do, then I don’t think we’ve yet truly surrendered our lives. Some of us, perhaps many, do have moments of surrender; but, we go back to that tiresome habit of human nature–we possess our personhood all over again. And we get caught up in “our” time, “our” resources, “our” lives. I’m beginning to see and better understand the concept of dying to oneself daily, of picking up one’s cross and soldiering forward just for the sake of someone else–most especially God.
Some other words to the song are “upward falling, spirit soaring I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground.” Yes, even more contradictory images. Welcome to Christianity…….the ways of Christ. It is possible to fall up, to get closer to Heaven on your actual knees than an astronaut in space can, to find your life by losing it. All of this certainly does seem to be upside down though–at least it seems to be so from where we are now. But, what if one day in the not too distant future we see that this world is what’s been upside down the whole time? And what if on that very same day in the not too distant future we see that the ways of God, as evidenced most clearly through his Christ, have always been “right” side up (pun intended)? I believe we will indeed see such a thing…….perhaps in the not too distant future.
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