TO LIVE IS CHRIST

Philippians 1:21

21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

God is always so gracious.  With the need to slow down after my surgery, I have had more time to study God’s word, pray, and meditate on what the Holy Spirit is guiding me to understand about my life.  As a result, I have experienced a paradigm shift about my view of the world and my purpose in life.

I believe that humans are wired to fear the unknown so the process of dying scares me.   I imagine that dying would involve some type of pain, and to me, the idea of being no more is rather disturbing.  Though I believe that as humans we all want to protect ourselves, I came to realize lately that I still had this mentality of “wishing I was dead”. 

As I have shared in previous posts, I suffer from depression, often feeling worthless and severely lacking in self-confidence.  My mind is often bombarded with thinking the worst of everything, known as catastrophizing. I am also a highly sensitive person, who struggles with an enormous amount of guilt and pride, becoming easily overwhelmed and tending to take almost everything personally. 

By the age of 15, I grew to hate mankind and living on the earth.  I just wanted to be with God in heaven.  Though I had no clue as to who Jesus was or what Christianity truly entailed, I had believed that only God could give me true and lasting peace.  The problem was, at that time, I only saw one way of being with him.  Though I had suicidal ideations, I could only cry and wish I was dead because of my fear of death, pain, and failing was so much more powerful than my desire to end it all.

When I became a disciple of Jesus, I welcomed life a bit more because I could embrace the beautiful hope that God provides us.  I also understood that suicide was no longer an option because it would defeat the purpose in my desire of being with God.  

However, as you have read in previous entries, I am constantly struggling with accepting God’s grace and my emotions.  My biggest battle lately has been confessing my thoughts and emotions to God, calling on him to help me process them.  I feel I must understand the role that these negative attitudes play in affecting my outlook in life.

I believe that God can heal all things, whether physical, emotional, mental, and/or spiritual. Over the years, however, my focus has been mostly on his miraculous healing of people’s hearts and relationships.  I have known a previously embittered single mom who began to passionately pray for her ex-husband’s spiritual relationship even though soon after he had walked away from God, he had left his wife and child.  I have heard endless stories of divorced couples helping each other to come to Christ rather than tearing each other down. I am also familiar with many accounts of how young disciples had turned their backs on God and his church but because of the prayers and unconditional love of their parents and/or their friends, they have returned to God more convicted than ever.  In fact, that miracle was actually what had happened to me in 2020.  So though I can recall several instances when there was no explanation other than God’s miraculous power of healing someone physically of an ailment, I tended to pay more attention to God’s healing power in the emotional and spiritual realm.

Because of this bias, I began cringing whenever I would hear people pray for complete physical healing, especially when they were praying for me.  My requests were more for God to use all this suffering to bring me and others closer to God.  Don’t get me wrong.  I wanted relief from my own suffering, and I felt guilty thinking that people needed to suffer so that they can get closer to God. 

I rationalized with this line of thinking: James 1:2-5 encourages us to be joyful whenever we are going through difficulties because it tests our faith, teaching us perseverance.  This is how we become mature and complete, not lacking anything.  We are to ask God who will grant us the wisdom we need when we don’t understand these things.  Also, if according to Hebrews 5:8-9, Jesus had to suffer so that he would learn obedience, why would I think that I could learn in any other way that was different?

The worst part of this rationalization though was that I began to judge others for their attempts to cling onto life.  But thanks be to God that this unrighteous concept in my heart began coming out as God used various individuals to challenge me about my persistent attitude of “wishing I was dead”.

It started with one of my best friends, who challenged my biased perception of a discussion group on gratitude that we attended.  The group was led by the father of her son’s girlfriend.  He shared his story about his stage 4 cancer and about the miraculous findings in his research which assisted him in going into remission and in staying healthy.  His underlying reason for wanting to share his discoveries was because he was so grateful to so many people who were praying for his physical healing and he wanted to give God the glory for the way that Jesus was working in his body and life.

During the discussion, my mind became inundated with various judgmental thoughts. “If we are Christians and believe that heaven is a much better place than here and we want to be with God, why do we cling so tightly onto life?”  “Isn’t it supposed to be like in Philippians 1:21 to DIE is GAIN?”  So, with my opinions so fresh on my mind, these self-righteous questions emerged.  

So, I had begun to pray and ask God why I was having these judgmental perceptions.  The reasons began to slowly unravel.

At first, I thought that it might have been because I sometimes have those self-debasing thoughts of worthlessness.  Things like: “Since I am now a divorcee for the 2nd TIME and I have no children of my own, there is no one here on earth to really live for.  And since I don’t have any talents and definitely no physical strength to serve anymore, I am of no use to God.”  But I kept noting that I was continuously thinking things like "this awful world” and “mankind is just so evil.”  

Okay yah, there is a lot of fighting going on in the world now and even at home.  That’s right! Oh man, I was in a shouting match with a couple of my family members not too long ago.  Ugh!  Because of my highly sensitive nature, I have always detested the arguing.  It is so hard for me not to take it personally.  I want so much to prove my point that I find it so difficult to know my place and be respectful of other people’s choices and their opinions.  I ache when we are not unified.  Unfortunately, we as humans are just so full of selfishness and pride, which inevitably leads to division.

It even says that in the Bible: “…every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5) and that we “all fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). I had hated mankind and even myself because I had identified everyone, including myself, with the sin that we are so quick to commit.  Thanks be to God that he is God, and I am not and that through Jesus Christ we are all saved:

Romans 3:23-24 (ERV)

23 All have sinned and are not good enough to share God’s divine greatness. 24 They are made right with God by his grace. This is a free gift. They are made right with God by being made free from sin through Jesus Christ.  

(Wow, because of Jesus, God does NOT identify us through our sin.  He has made man right with him.  We can be freed from sin!  Yippee!  Thank you, Jesus!)

I will never be able to understand how God does this—to want a relationship with us when we have done nothing but hurt each other and him so, so much!  How does a father send his own son to take our place when we are his enemies and deserve death?  How can Jesus even be willing to be separated from the Father?  How can he choose to go through all that intense physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual pain as he, once for all, had experienced every bit of the suffering that our sin causes when he went to the cross?  Truthfully, I find it hard to forgive and I know that I could not ever forgive, not without God first embracing me with his love and grace as I face my own sin putting Jesus on the cross.  Gee, forgive me Father, for this sin of ingratitude right now!  Thank you, God, so much for your beautiful grace and your deep love for me.

Knowing that God can change my heart and fill me with his love and grace, why did I still want to die?  I went to God in prayer and wrestled more with trying to understand my continual attitude of ingratitude about my life.

God then led me to one of those life-changing sermons.  On September 17, 2023, Michael Lamb preached his sermon titled “Kiss the Waves.”  I did not recognize his name at first, but he is the little 6-year-old Michael in the book called This Doesn’t Feel Like Love: Trusting God When Bad Things Happen written in 1996 by his parents Roger and Marcia Lamb.  He was the little boy, who had to go to St Louis Children’s hospital on his 6th birthday where he was diagnosed with childhood leukemia.  Both of his parents recalled how their neighbor’s son had just died of this same disease 9 months earlier.  Michael survived the leukemia and was now all grown up.  He is a husband and a father.  And now he has stage 4 Mantle Cell Cancer!  Oh man!  What agony!  Why God why?  

As I listened to his sermon, I noted his deep sense of gratitude for everything that God had given him, including all the pain and suffering that he had endured.  He was a survivor of childhood leukemia.  His brother died earlier of cancer and his sister also died from some other chronic health condition so now he was the only surviving child of Roger and Marcia Lamb.  Michael just expressed so much gratitude to God and to all who were praying for him and his family.  This really amazed me.

There was a coin phrase that both Michael and Marcia used: “Don’t waste your suffering.”  Basically, we have a choice as to how we look at our hardships.  We can choose to endure and learn from them, or we can just grumble and complain and die from them.  I am talking about spiritual death, which is far worse than what all of us will eventually go through—physical death.  Michael shared his conviction that God does NOT promise us that here on earth we will NOT experience pain, (in fact God does tell us the exact opposite: John 16:33b says, “In this world you will have trouble.”) BUT God DOES promise that as we suffer through these trials, we can have exponential spiritual growth.  (James 1:2-5, Romans 5:3-5, and Mark 10:29-30 to name just a few.)

As Michael was talking about his cancer and God’s provision of complete healing, he emphasized the importance of allowing others into his life.  He looked at his suffering as a way of opening the door for his community to practice Romans 12:15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn”.  He understood his cancers to be opportunities to be unified in love as many people had prayed for and served him and his family.  God had granted Michael to be in remission from his terminal cancer.  Michael knew however, that it was just remission and that he still has numerous other life-threatening health conditions.  Regardless, Michael was so grateful for everything that God had provided, and he even embraced his LIFE WITH his sufferings.  He had chosen to openly share about his struggles so that we all would pray for complete healing, and that we can learn those vital lessons from our own and one another’s hardships.  He is living that first part of Philippians 1:21: “To Live Is Christ…”

God put this challenge before me, but again those self-debasing thoughts of worthlessness started to pop up in my mind.  “Okay but he is a church leader, and his mom and dad wrote that impactful book. I am just an average Jane Christian.”

“But wait a minute Kim, remember what you learned from the story of Jairus.”  Jesus knew that Jairus had put limits on his faith in what Jesus could do so Jesus said to him: “Don’t be afraid. Just believe.” (Mark 5:36). Lord Jesus what am I still afraid of?  Why am I still hold back in wanting to be physically healed?

About this same time, I received two prayer requests that further intrigued me.  One was about a good friend’s family member who was in the hospital due to his suicidal attempt.  The other was about a death of a devoted sister in Christ.  She was sitting in her car, getting ready to go to an appointment and instantly died of an aneurysm.  She had no known history of aneurysms prior to her death.  So, someone, who tries to kill himself, God does not allow to die and then someone, who is just going about her day, God takes to be with him. Hmm.

Then God finally revealed to me what it was really all about:

It was more than just the depressive mindset, the hypersensitivity, or even my lack of self-esteem and self-worth.  God showed me that it was the biggest AVOIDANCE issue of all times.  I hate living here on earth because selfishly I want to flee from all struggles.  I do not want to suffer at all whether it is me that is in pain or someone else I am watching going through those trials.  Who does!  I don’t actually desire dying, but I think of it only as a means to escape the heartaches that I perceive and which I do not believe that I can process.  By myself, I am nothing but a selfish, prideful coward.  

BUT THANKS BE TO GOD as Paul said in Romans 7:24-25 after he acknowledged that without Christ, he cannot follow God’s perfect law.  “What a wretched {wo}man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

God had worked through all these instances to expose my rotten heart of ingratitude.  I had witnessed others praising God for the way that he was working physically in their lives as their cancers went into remission.  They acknowledged all of God’s power and his great love, believing that God knew what was best for them, even if it meant that they had to continue life with its challenges.  They called on God to heal them completely because they believed that God’s work in using them was not yet done.  Out of gratitude, they were sharing what they were learning.

I then began to reflect on the suicide attempt and the odd death.  Though God is the one who determines how and exactly when we all die, he allows us to make decisions in what we choose to live or die for—self or God.  Looking at Romans 6:15-23, I went deeper with this question: “Am I choosing to be a slave to my sin (satan’s way) which leads to my spiritual death or to righteousness (God’s way) which leads to being with God for eternity?”  Though we are human and so full of evil and sin all the time, God has graciously shown us the full extent of his love with giving us Jesus (John 3:16).  And through his gracious gift of his Holy Spirit, I can embrace the sufferings that I am enduring with my cancer and with all my relationship hiccups.  These are just opportunities for me to learn my much-needed lessons on gratitude, grace, and love. 

It is okay to not want to go through hardships and persecutions; there is nothing wrong with crying out in pain.  I cannot deny that suffering is hard.  But I have cowered in the corner far too long.  I have allowed satan way too many opportunities to influence my attitude about my life.  I desire to live life the way that God had planned it—to the full.

John 10:10

10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I {Jesus} have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

Living life to the full will come with many hardships as it was God’s plan from the beginning to allow Jesus to suffer because of my sin.  Jesus had learned obedience through his suffering as he appealed to the Father with loud cries and tears (Hebrews 5:7-8).  Discipline never seems pleasant at the time, but I have seen how it has produced the most beautiful harvest of righteousness and PEACE when I am humble enough to embrace the lesson (Hebrews 12:11). God wants me to continually go to him in prayer, fighting for that total submission to whatever his will is for me each day.  

So now as I open my eyes every morning, God has helped me to embrace with thanksgiving whatever hardship the day may bring.  Each time he fills my lungs with his breath, God is telling me that he is not done with me yet.  He still has plans to glorify his name through me as I get the privilege of sharing God’s love, which is the Good News about Jesus, with as many as possible in whatever way possible.  If God has done this much for me to show me that he never gives up on wanting a relationship with me, then I am moved to respond to his love in the same way as I share this with others.

I have decided that as I follow Jesus, my Lord, I will no longer hold back my prayers for complete healing for others as well as for myself.  I trust that God always provides us with all we need to be desperate for him as we humble ourselves enough to be trained through whatever trials are planned for us.  I don’t want to waste my suffering nor for others to waste theirs.  I want us all to draw closer to God and to one another so Lord Jesus, please use me in whatever way you see fit in my life and eventually in my death.

For to live is Christ but to die is gain.

To God be the glory.  Amen.

Link to Michael Lamb’s sermon: https://www.youtube.com/live/sAwOAC2FPa0?feature=shared&t=2806

Picture of front cover of Marcia and Roger Lamb’s book: This Doesn’t Feel Like Love: Trusting God When Bad Things Happen.