Fully Alive
Dear Friends,
The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky told the story of the time he was arrested by the czar and sentenced to die. The czar liked to play cruel psychological tricks on the people who rebelled against him by blindfolding them and standing them in front of a firing squad. The blindfolded people would hear the gunshots go off, but would feel nothing. Then they would slowly realise that the guns were loaded with blanks.
Dostoevsky went through this experience himself. He said that going through the thought process of believing he was really going to die had a transforming effect on him. He talked about waking up that morning with full assurance that this would be his last day of life. He ate his last meal and savoured every bite. Every breath of air he took was precious to him. Every face he saw, he studied with full intensity. Suddenly, every experience was etched in his mind.
As they marched him into the courtyard, he felt the heat of the sun and appreciated its warmth like never before. Everything around him seemed to have a magical quality to it. He was seeing the world in a way he had never seen it before. He was fully alive!
When he realised that he had not been shot and that he was not going to die that day, everything about his life changed. He became thankful for everything about his life. He became grateful to people he had previously despised. It was this experience that persuaded him to become a novelist and write about life in a way that before would have never been known to him.
We Christians ought to be fully alive like this. We’ve stared death in the face. If you are a believer in Christ, then you came to the understanding at some point in your life that your sin would lead you to eternal death. We were all doomed to die. But God sent his Son Jesus Christ to die in our place, and because of that we live. And because of that – the Apostle Paul wrote: ''I urge you...in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship.'' Romans 12:1 Let's all take a new look on LIFE.
Agapé,
J.John
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