Brown and Green, & Death and Life Prayers at the Eno River

So when I take retreats in nature, I am often surprised by how God uses the stuff of nature to teach me. Perhaps this shouldn't come as quite such a shock, Jesus used whatever was around all the time to shape and build his messages.

Yesterday as I was walking the Eno River trails I was struck by not just how alive nature is, but also how very dead. There were felled trees everywhere, rotting logs, dead leaves and grass.

And, of course, there was life. Nature often goes from green to brown in North Carolina in August. But we've had a rather wet summer, and so there was still plenty of green to be had.

The dynamic of things dying and new things springing up brought me to this prayer: Lord, what in me needs to die so that something new might spring to life?

This, of course, is the Christian story. The hope that we proclaim is a messy hope. It is life that only comes on the other side of death.

Jesus goes to the cross, endures the shame, dies a brutal death, and then three days later is raised victoriously. The victory is the last and loudest word. But it only comes on the other side of the death.

As with Jesus, so it is with us. We live only as we die. We discover more and more life only as we willingly put things to death in us that are themselves death--the gangrenous, poisonous, corrosive activities and thoughts and beliefs that rob us of joy and life: pride, porn, greed, addictions, gossip, lying, mis-directed worship of career or success, and sexual brokenness all fit in this category.

We are often called to put things to death without any clear sense of what's on the other side. That is, we are called to die so that we might live, but we don't have any clear sense of what that life looks or feels like. That's called living by faith. It's what we're called to do.

And it's scary. Because putting something to death hurts like hell--it's a real death, not a surface fix. So we run away from the very path that would offer us life because at least we know what we have--even if it's a poor substitute for a real life, at least it's a known quantity.

But the economy of the kingdom is that life comes from death. That's how the exchange works. We have Jesus as our brother and king who has led the way--he is not calling us to do anything that he himself has not done already.

We, of course, would rather skip over the death and just get straight to the life part. But it is simply impossible. For life to genuinely take root, we must clear out the space, allow for this new thing to flourish. Otherwise, as in the parable, it gets choked out.

What needs to die so that something new might spring up? In my soul, in my work, in my family, in my friendships, in my hopes and dreams...I'm just asking. We'll see where it leads me.