What Does Christ’s Resurrection Mean for My Diet?

Singlehandedly one of the dumbest questions I could ask in all Christendom.  Rivaled only by, perhaps, “Where does the youth pastor come down on pajama jeans?”

 

But in this Holy Week, I have been thinking about the fact that I believe in a living God.  I have mentioned this a few times before, as a source of encouragement, as I struggle with trying to enact change in my life.

I am trying to wrap my head around what believing in “a living God” means when it comes to the demons I am currently fighting.  

More and more, as I go about this change in my life, I am often reminded that I can’t just shine up the surface.  If I want change, lasting change, then there has to be a shift in my perception of who I am and who I am in the Lord. 

  

“Who I am in the Lord” is one of those Christian phrases we say often.  We like it because it sums up a large scope of things that are hard to put into words.  But let’s give it a shot.  Who I am in the Lord means defining myself by my relationship to God, and what I think He is asking of me, and what I think He thinks of me.   Basically, seeing myself through His lens, or attempting to do that.

So what does this all have to do with a living God?

 Last year, I walked through a depression.  And the term ‘walked’ is gracious. The details of this I will cover at later date.  But during this time I didn’t turn away from God, though I did feel like He might have turned away from me.  

It was a very frustrating and confusing time for me. I thought that, up to that point, I had done everything right.  I had followed all the moral instruction of my youth.  Read the Bible, pray, church, no substance abuse, wait for the right man, wait to marry that man, try to be a godly wife, beep, bop, boop.  

You see, in Christian education they taught us that bad life decisions came with bad consequences and a hard life.  This concept is a truth.  But somewhere along the way this concept got flipped, at least in my head, to mean that good life choices will lead to a not-so-hard life.  And I see how in some ways this is also very true, but I think it became stretched, in my mind, to seem like good decisions would allow me to avoid real hardship and sorrow.

So here I was, with a husband who had been so sick for so long, and me going into a depression as a result.  And it was the depression, not his illness, that felt like the overall failing of the system.  I felt like, “What the heck? This sadness isn’t what I signed up for.” I knew some trials would come, but where is the “mount up with wings as eagles” business that was on the walls of my high school?  Somewhere along the line there was a miscommunication.  I felt like either I had messed up or God had messed up.  Guess who comes out of that one feeling guilty?  

As I went through this time I undoubtedly experienced a lot of emotions, and one of my feelings was that I wanted to find something new.  I wanted a new truth.  Some truth I hadn’t gotten yet.  Some spiritual diagnosis that I hadn’t yet discovered.   And flip the switch that led to strength and hope.  

For a brief moment I thought about other religious practices, but not really.  I kept coming back to the verse “To whom shall I go, Lord?” I believe He is the Christ, son of the living God.  And that is written somewhere on the unshakeable foundations of my soul.  

During this time, I was built in layers.  There was the top layer that was questioning what I believed, if I had had it all wrong.  Then there was another layer that knew I needed God.  I was useless without him.  These layers had sadness and grief sloshing in-between them. 

Then somewhere deeper still there was the foundation of me.  Where some holy finger had writ that He is God and I am His.  And all this fussing and fighting, grief and wavering, will pass more like a storm on top of the sea, and less like an earthquake changing the terrain of the ocean floor.  

One day, as I struggled with this parfait of emotions, I was driving in my car, singing hymns.  Not worship songs, not updated versions of the old standards, but the old hymns, with the old difficult harmony and the meter.  I sang as many as I could remember.  And didn’t care how I sounded; I was just getting the words out of my mouth, as honestly as I could muster.  I was singing the steady, constant 4/4 meter, rhythmically messaging those truths into my soul.  Trying to stir up something that felt dormant in me.

So how do I believe in the old God in new ways?

Here is where the concept of a living God comes sweeping in like the refreshment of sea spray. 

Because a God who is alive is a God who is active.  A God who will reach me in new ways.  A God who is patient for me and pursues me.  A God who fights for me, even when I don’t believe it.  

A living God means my faith doesn’t hang on me, on my hours of penance, my good deeds, or my steps to the altar.  My faith, salvation, hope, is on the shoulders of God.  Who not only paid for my sins on Good Friday but rose on Easter so He could forever be Emmanuel, God with us.

I don’t need a new truth; just the living God who is able to teach me new truths about His eternal unchanging self.

He is alive so He could be our Savior in life’s trials, again and again. He is alive to be our comforter and healer, again and again. 

He’s alive! He’s alive! I’m not in this alone.  

I am not alone.

This is one of the lessons that God used as a comfort during that dark time.  He had more to teach me and He did drive home some old truths in new ways.  And that, my friend, is another post.

But what does Easter mean for my demons and my goals?  For my failing and my success?  For who I am and who He is asking me to be?

Just the fantastic promise that He will walk through these challenges with me, just as He walked with me through the emotional challenges of last year.  Just as He'll walk with me through the trials that will come in the future.

Simply put, I am not alone. 

"The steps of a man are established by the LORD,
        And He delights in his way.

 When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong,
         Because the LORD is the One who holds his hand."

Psalm 37:23-24