Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Tuesday July 11, 2006

On the Lord's Day past I caught myself explaining the kind of life I have lived. This discovery is not based on feeling, else I would have written the 'kind of life I feel I have lived,' but rather the statement is based on the evidence of long years, that often seem to have been much longer than the calendar shows.

My statement to the gathered saints was a simple, yet certainly a profound one, which according to the comment of a cultured lady is 'Very rare for you, Dr. Lilly.'

Well.

"My life consists of one event linked to another event all of which I would have rather died than experienced."

I am not paraphrasing a statement from Norman Vincent Peale or Robert Shuler, but simply stating the way things are in my life as it has been lived. Most of my hard knocks are the result of Mother loving my sister more than she loved me, but most of the rest are of my own very poor decisions. An infinitesimal number are put into the pigeon hole of "just one of those things."

From my training and living for the Lord for the bulk of my adult years I am familiar with the grand truth of Romans 8:28, and I know the Lord has been with me through it all. Yet I have not found the inner grit to say with gusto, "Hot dog, here comes another brutal trial, a dark night of the soul sort of trial that will make me more like Jesus." Truth be known, I find that I think, "Eventually I as will all believers be like Jesus, so why can't I just live large and not have to suffer all this pain?"

If living the spiritual life in a gigantic manner necessitates Jobian suffering I for one will settle for an ordinary life now, perhaps cramming all of the suffering into a few of my last hours on earth.

For me, life would be better if others were put on earth to suffer in order that my existence might be easier, but I keep getting hit with the idea that I am on earth to toil and suffer and somehow contribute to the betterment of my fellow man. It's all backwards in my opinion, but who am I?

Suffering, sacrifice are said to be the essence of the true Christian experience, at least that's what Jesus taught. I often wish He hadn't taught this stuff. I think it would be better if others suffered and sacrificed and I lived the Life of Riley. This way I could sleep a little later on Sunday morning, get up, clean up, and try out the Scrumptious Sunday Brunch at the new restaurant and all through the week rub it in to my fellow Christian Soldiers of how I enjoyed the rich bounty of Christ while they, the deluded ones, endured yet another pitiful foaming at the mouth of Momma's little preacher.

Having lived life to its ultimate fullness, I would on some Sunday Morning be summoned to walk through the valley and hear my dear savior proclaim for all to hear, "Well done, Larry, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into my joy!"

Sure.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2006 Use with credit.

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