We have a little Easter tradition around here that I absolutely love. We do the Resurrection Eggs and go to church and think about the empty tomb, which of course is what this most special of Days is all about.
What does it mean to die to self?
The question—posed several years ago during a small-group discussion—was one I had never seriously considered.
The image of someone jumping in front of a bus to save another person immediately sprang to mind, but I suspected the meaning was more figurative than literal.
The scriptural context was 2 Corinthians 4:10-12, which says:
“We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who live are always given over to death because of Jesus, so that Jesus’ life may also be revealed in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you.”
I had always sort of skipped over these verses, what with all the repeated words about life and death and mortal flesh. I understood the connection to the one-time event of salvation, but that night, I started thinking about how “death” in me could result in life for someone else.
That season of my life included significant amounts of change and stress. Though it all, I struggled with irritability. I often reacted rather than responded. I frequently failed to demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit in how I interacted with my daughters, who were then about 10 and 7 years old.
As I contemplated dying to self through the lens of my own struggles, Jesus’ words in John 10:10 came to mind:
“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
I thought about my words, my tone and my attitude. I considered the power they have to impact other people, even if it’s just the people in my house.
Do my attitudes and my thoughts bring life to others? I asked myself. When I respond to my children, are my words bringing life to their hearts and minds, or are my words and tone speaking death to them?
I know the theological concept of dying to self is multi-faceted and many layered, but this was what convicted me during that conversation. When every fiber my being wants respond in irritation and frustration—because I’m stressed, tired, hormonal or whatever—it is possible for me to die to myself so that someone else can experience life—full, whole, complete life.
I can choose kind, gentle and loving words instead of going with my human desire to be irritable. I can put someone else’s need for my presence above my own need to be alone.
Don’t get me wrong—it’s not easy. It actually can be quite hard, especially for someone who has been running on irritable for a long time.
There are many times when I don’t do it, even now.
But I can do it. It is possible.
The day after our small group talked about dying to self, Lilly—who was in fourth grade at the time—asked me if I would come to school and have lunch with her. I tried to do that regularly back then, gamely braving a noisy lunchroom full of highly spirited kids because she wanted me to be there.
That particular morning, though, I was even more tired than usual. I had already come for lunch once that week, and I didn’t really want to do it again so soon.
“No, not today, honey,” I told her as she got out of the car.
She was OK with that, but no sooner had I driven out of the parking lot than the words from the night before started running through my head: die to self, die to self, die to self.
Oh, all RIGHT, I frumped. I get the message. I’ll go to school for lunch today!
When I got there later, I went to the fourth-grade wet area to find Lilly. One glance at her face told me something was terribly wrong.
A friend had been unkind and her feelings were hurt.
In a way that nobody but God could have predicted, she needed her mom right then, and there I was.
We retreated to the bathroom, where hugs and a few soft words soothed her feelings. She usually invited a friend join us for lunch, but this time, she and I sat at a table in the wet area—just the two of us—and ate our lunches. I pulled a deck of cards out of my purse, and by the time her classmates came back, she was fine.
It was a small thing, but it made a huge impression on me—one that lingers to this day.
(That’s not all I learned about dying to self during that season of my life, by the way. Next week, I’ll share about an unexpected epiphany that touched the deepest parts of my faith.)
♥ Lois
When your 22nd wedding anniversary falls on the day before Easter, at the end of yet another week of scary news headlines, it’s hard to know how to commemorate the occasion on your blog (especially if you don’t normally post on Saturdays or spend a lot of time writing about marriage).
Sometimes, though, it’s OK to forget about what may or may not be appropriate blogging behavior and just go with your heart. And as I look forward to celebrating our risen Savior tomorrow, my heart says to post this today.
• • • • •
Randy has been talking for a long time about replacing his wedding ring with a tattoo. His gold ring itches, he says, and he’s constantly taking it off and rubbing his finger.
My long-time love of gardening began germinating a couple of decades ago. We had moved into a new house with a great space for a flowerbed by the front door, so I ordered a bunch of perennials from a mail-order catalog to help fill it up.
Plants were much cheaper back then, which is why I was able to purchase six black-eyed Susan plants for about $12. The heavy clay Arkansas soil must have agreed with them, because in a few years, they had expanded so much they practically took over the entire garden.
A year or two ago, I heard a song on the radio a lot—a prayer for God to “make me broken.”
I understand why such a plea is important, and I appreciate the sincerity with which it is offered.
But while many people may find those words just right for them, I don’t pray that way much.
There’s an azalea bush on the side of my house, nestled under the canopy of a large Colorado blue spruce.
I don’t know the history of this particular shrub, but I do know a thing or two about the landscape that surrounds it. Long-time neighbors say it used to be quite impressive, with expansive flowerbeds, outdoor lighting and a water featuring running down the entire right side of the backyard.
By the time we moved in almost five years ago, though, there wasn’t much evidence of the yard’s former grandeur. Besides the mammoth clump of ornamental grass in the front, some flowering trees in the back, and a lone perennial here and there, most of the landscape consisted of overgrown weeds, bare mulch and way more periwinkle than anyone would ever want.
Bit by bit, I began to renovate the garden spaces that had so attracted me when we first looked at the fixer-upper we now call home. Along the way, I discovered a few pleasant surprises, like the prolific clematis on the side fence and a host of flowering bulbs that seem to pop out of nowhere in early spring.
But the azalea bush was not on my list of favorites. Crowded there under the spruce tree, it looked like a misshapen umbrella, with a few inches of growth on top and a mass of bare branches underneath. Thankfully, it was hidden away in an obscure section of the yard, so I mostly just ignored it for the first few years.
I considered moving it, but that involved more work and care than I was willing to exert for a shrub I didn’t really like. So eventually, I decided to dig the whole thing up, pitch it in our city-issued yard-waste cart and be done with it.
Around this time, my azalea-loving younger sister happened to be visiting. When I told her of my plan, she suggested that, instead of digging up the hapless bush and throwing it away, I should chop it back almost to the ground and let it grow again.
I’m not a risk taker, even in the garden, and her recommendation seemed a bit drastic. But since I was planning to get rid of the whole thing anyway, I decided to prune back half of the bush and see what happened.
Sure enough, the following spring the pruned side of the azalea sprouted a lovely crop of new leaves and bloomed nicely. I cut back the rest of it later that year and trimmed the spruce tree that had been crowding it for years.
Today, the azalea is significantly smaller, but it’s also greener, fuller and has a much nicer shape. Thanks to severe pruning, the bush I almost threw away has become a source of joy for this once-timid gardener.
When it comes to this little gardening anecdote, the theological analogies are numerous.
I could write about how the Master Gardener often wields His pruning shears when He needs to discipline His children, cutting out the sin in our lives so new growth can occur. Or how He gets out the clippers when we’ve grown cold or lazy in our faith and need the deadwood removed from our hearts.
But when I think about my azalea bush, something else comes to mind. You see, as obvious as this might sound, it wasn’t the bush’s fault that it wasn’t thriving.
I’m guessing this shrub was a glorious specimen early on. But it had been neglected by previous owners of the house in recent years. The nearby fence got in the way of its growth. It had been planted too close to the spruce tree, which had all but choked it out by the time we moved in.
The azalea had no control over any of these factors. The only thing it could do was eke out a pitiful existence and hope (if plants are capable of such feelings) that a gardener would come along one day and rescue it.
Something similar can happen to us, I think. When we are adopted into God’s family, we become new creations. The old goes away as we become firmly planted in our new lives (see 2 Corinthians 2:17).
But over the course of the years—as life goes on in us and around us—what was once new can become worn, thin underneath, or even flat crowded out. Like the azalea bush, we can stop thriving like we once did.
Our condition might be due to our own sins and choices, but the choking-out also can be caused by external factors.
And sometimes, the only thing that will revive us is a whole-life renovation.
Sometimes God has something else in mind for us to do, so He allows or orchestrates the circumstances of our lives to cut us way back. He doesn’t do this to be mean or to punish us, but to allow new growth to occur—growth that often prepares us for whatever comes later in our lives.
It’s not always comfortable to think like this. It might be easier to believe that the difficult things that shape us just happen or are merely the result of a fallen world—that God can certainly use them, but that He doesn’t orchestrate them.
I don’t have all the answers to these theological puzzles. I’m just speaking from the perspective of a gardener. And here’s what I know about that.
The azalea couldn’t prune itself.
It didn’t even know it needed pruning.
I had to do it.
I had to conjure up my confidence and hope that the drastic measures I was about to take would, indeed, transform the bush into something beautiful again.
My efforts worked with the azalea bush. Now I need to do the same thing with the row of boxwoods that line the front of my house. They look good from the top and front, but underneath, they, too, are a mass of brown branches.
Given their prominent spot in our landscape, it will take some serious guts for me to prune the boxwoods way back. Honestly, I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to initiate that transformation.
Thankfully, when it comes to the whole-life renovations of His children, God doesn’t need guts or hope.
He knows the outcome before He begins. And everything He does, He does out of unconditional love for us.
♥ Lois