Today I want to talk about a saying that really really annoys me. (I know, it's brilliant to be complaining the week where we are supposed to be thankful!) I use this saying all the time, but I hate using it and I hate the idea behind it.
"That's life," we say.
When we lose a job or our microwave breaks, we sigh and say, "that's life."
When we're super busy or we don't get along with other people, we shrug it off and say, "that's life."
When we find flaws in our work or we have to start a project over, we grumble and say, "that's life."
When we have an impossible dream and lose our motivation, we quit and say, "that's life."
When wars and crises arise and we think our world's just gone down the drain, we say "that's life."
When it feels like God is distant and we're stuck on our own, we just say, "that's life."
And we move on.
Why do we have to say that? Why are we obligated to a mysterious fate called life? Yes, there are about two things we have guaranteed in this life, first, death; second, taxes! Yes, we can generally look at lives from the past to learn from their mistakes, predict possible outcomes, and maybe make better plans for the future.
But we aren't tied to that. We never have to be controlled by the outcome of a unknown lottery machine of future events. Isn't God the one who created life? Doesn't He have control over our future and over us? Jesus told us that He came to earth so that we might have life, and have it "to the full!" So why do we settle?
Because we're comfortable. We American Christians are so comfortable in our little Jesus boxes that we don't bother to dream the impossible. We don't care enough to look and see if this is really all there is to life. We rarely ask the Holy Spirit to be present in our lives every day. We don't expect God to move in miraculous ways for us. We don't hope for things like what happened in the apostles' stories in Acts to happen today. Because we're comfortable.
How comfortable are you? How okay are you with your life? When was the last time the Holy Spirit pointed out an attitude to change, a relationship to mend, an opportunity to give Him glory? Did you follow that call? Have you even heard His voice?
Living life to the full is like skydiving - you have to jump out of a plane that has a seat for you, a nice buckle to keep you in that seat, protection from the sun and the wind and the rain and the pull of gravity. You have no need to jump out. You have no need to use the dangerous route to get back to the ground. You can just ride the nice plane down to safety.
But you're not going to have much of a story when you get back to the ground if you never jumped out of that window. You're not going to have the thrill of falling, flying, hurtling down towards the planet unrestrained until at the last second you release the parachute.
It's the same way in our walk with Jesus. We could stay in our comfy churches with the seats we've picked out with protection from the elements of our broken world and the gravity of life's messes. We don't have to go do things to earn our salvation. We aren't obligated to take the dangerous route because "His grace abounds in our weakness." We can just ride the nice Christian life to heaven.
But you can't live life the way God designed you to when you're still inside the airplane! It's time to let go of following the status quo of "that's life." Because there really is more than the nice busy Christian life full of church services with plastic perfect people and life groups full of plastic perfect discussion and the rest of your life as the quiet, unoffensive office worker with a "Jesus loves you" sticker in your cubicle. There really is more to life than the loads of dishes and laundry and kids' noses and faces to clean and meals to prepare and arguments to interrupt. Oh, yes, that mundane still exists. Oh, yes, the trials and the failures and the car breakdowns and feeling distant from God won't go away. That's because we're human and our world is broken.
(But we're not just human beings. Our soul is eternal and will live forever in Christ's presence if we've accepted His salvation. I'm learning, too, that that soul isn't the only things that will live on. We will have eternal bodies in continuity with the old, but those bodies won't decay or become useless. What an exciting prospect! I can't wait for heaven. And seeing Jesus.)
When we are in eternity, I think I'd rather tell the story of how I went skydiving.
What about you?
There's no going back once you jump. But when it come to living God's life for you, you won't regret jumping.
You'll get the opportunity to truly be God's hands and feet for this broken world.
You might get to see God's presence tangibly changing lives and changing whole cultures.
Your heart attitude towards God might be personally transformed from the inside out.
You might be hated for your radical ideas. Jesus practically guarantees it.
You won't be comfortable. But you probably won't miss that comfortable life once you leave it.
You might live that impossible dream in spite of every voice that says it can't happen.
You'll have the chance to redefine what you call truly living.
You will be changed. And that's life. God's way.
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