A little over a year ago, I went to a bible study put on by Come Let’s Dance in Steamboat at the local Episcopal church about twice a week. I would go to Steamboat most everyday, spending time volunteering with Come Let’s Dance, working out, and going to the library with friends like Taek Soo Kim.
One thing I did, most every day, whether on my computer or on my phone, wherever I went, was watch episodes of The Walking Dead on Netflix. You might think that a violent show about a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies or “walkers” would not be the best show for a schizophrenic to watch, and you would be right. Yet, for one odd reason or another I got hooked on that show last year and the addiction has not stopped.
While I obsessively watched The Walking Dead last year, you could say that I was a “walker” spiritually. For much of last year until this February, I was unemployed. Every job offer I found was fruitless. The vocational counselors that were supposed to help me, were not much help at all. And many of my days were spent in isolation and worry.
Then in February, I got a job at the local library, just a two minute walk from my house. While I was grateful and still am for the opprotunity to work, it is only five hours a week and all that extra time has left plenty of time to be tempted to worry.
Then, to top that off, the past two months have been filled with many health problems concerning the lower half of my body. Now, I am grateful to have to talk about those issues less and less. 🙂
Besides the pressures to fit in, to work out, to socialize, there’s also the occasional Facebook reports about an impending financial collapse, blood moons, and the “end of the world.”
With all these worries, trials and tribulations, I could succomb to darkness. I could hang my head low, slobber, growl hoarsely, and be “spiritually dead.”
Or, I can choose to hang my head high and become “spiritually alive.”
Yes, the “walkers,” the agents of the evil one, every evil force may be walking behind me. Yet, I know who stands behind me, who walks beside me, and who goes before me, patiently waiting for me to arrive home. He is “the God of angel armies” and all others flee before Him.
While I love all my earthly comforts, and while I know, that should a financial collapse happen, my housing, benefits, medicine could be stripped away, I also know this. My greatest longings and my greatest pains will never be resolved in this world or this life. So why should I hold on to material things and experiences when I know that only Jesus can bring an end to all my longing and all my pain.
So instead of hanging our heads low, looking to the past, agonizing about the future, whether it be the end of the world, a possible new relationship, whatever, let’s do something different for the remainder of this year. Let’s become “alive” in our hearts and let that life seep through into the lives of those around us. And let us remember, that through Jesus, we are given life and the opprotunity for even more.
Ephesians 2:1-5 ESV
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body[a]and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.[b]4 But[c] God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved…
Until Next Time,
Jacobo
The Adventures of A Warrior 