I've been considering how much the last few years (or maybe 20) has been an awakening and how much I was sleepwalking through life before--content to simply move forward (but not really) in in a state where choices of movement, words, even food, are moved by habit and instinct and feeling, without any thought as to how my choices affect myself or others or where they will eventually take me.
My great goal in life seemed to have become to "get through the day". And if I, on those rare occasions, aspired to greater goals, they were goals that I received unthinkingly from someone else who told me I ought to be this or that: thinner, more well-read, have more money. And I thought if I achieved those goals (though it was rare that I ever allowed a goal in that was truly achievable, therefore draining me of my courage to have any goals whatsoever), if I achieved them, I would finally be truly happy. And I thought this despite all evidence to the contrary in the lives of others, whether contemporaries or throughout history.
Though on reconsidering the matter, there were indeed lives who displayed evidence to the contrary, people who reached these goals (sad imitations of the upward call in Christ). But sadly, I often failed to take the time to sort out which evidence was deposited in my mind, into my memory banks of data used to calculate my choices, via the lives of fictional characters who entered in by way of television, movies, books, even songs.
So how did I start waking up? First consider how I went to sleep. Was it self-defense--a sort of post-traumatic syndrome of spiritual narcolepsy? Is it because life is simply too unpleasant to engage fully awake?
Yes, life is very painful. No one bothers to deny this. But a truth more difficult to accept is how much of our pain is self-inflicted. And even harder to accept is that changing our bent towards self-destruction and leaving destruction in our wake is beyond the reach of self-help, goals, programs, and 12-step programs.
But listen to Karl Barth as he considers how salvation comes through being a watchman--the antithesis to being asleep in the light, by the way, in that a watchman has to stay awake in the dark:
"The righteous whall live by faithfulness! (Hab 2:4). The righteous man is the prisoner become watchman. He is the guard at the threshold of divine reality. There is no righteousness save that of the man who sets himself under judgment, of the man who is terrified and hopes. He shall live. He has the expectation of true life, for, recognizing that this life is naught, he is never without the reflection of the true life in this life, never without the prospect of incorruption in that which is passing to corruption."
-Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 41
So we adjust our thinking and stop thinking about whose fault it is that we are going through pain, birth pangs rather. And rejoice that every trial is bringing us closer to rebirth, that he who has suffered is done with sin, if we hope in the glory of God being revealed in us, for by this hope we are saved (1 John). We refuse anesthesia because we no refuse to dilute the joy of the birth to come (or inhibit the birth by deadening our senses).
By the way, it's interesting that the phrase in Galations 2:20, which in the King James is translated "faith of Christ" is stubbornly translated in most other versions as "Faith in Jesus". Our only work is to believe, to hope. And the greater part of the work is on God's part. The phrase, I have heard, could be more properly translated "faithfulness of Christ". In our world of speeding along things, being in a hurry to be healed, to grow faster than nature allows, it is a hard thing to learn that so much our work is in the waiting and watching. And God is gracious. Just like the story of Frog and Toad where toad planted seeds and did all sorts of things to try to make them grow faster--read to them, play music, etc.--he felt victorious when they finally sprang up. But they would have sprouted anyway, and he would have been much more well rested had he simply waited. But God still brings life despite our crazy urge to participate in those works that can only be done by his hand. What a gracious God!!!
