Life depends on you. Your life is your own. The weight of your own life rests squarely on your shoulders. You are the master of your fate. You are the captain of your soul (1). It’s what you do that defines you (2). Life is a series of choices: be smart, be wise, don’t screw it up. Don’t disappoint the people around you. Don’t fail – be successful. Onwards and upwards, in all spheres of life. Do you have what it takes?
Take a breath. What do you feel as you read this? Does it feel familiar? It definitely does to me. My soul knows the nooks and crannies of this narrative very well.
What arises in you as you read it? Can you feel the pressure?
Does your mind perhaps wander to specific areas of your life where you currently feel a lot of pressure? Pressure to make the right decisions: in your career, in planning where to live or when to start your next season. Pressure at work: to perform, not “drop the ball” or be revealed as an impostor. Pressure in your finances, with this ever-present question of am I doing/saving enough? Where do you feel the weight of your life bearing down on you?
During His time on Earth, Jesus shared something particularly radical with the people looking to follow Him:
Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.’
Matthew 16:24
A central part of the Gospel of Jesus is that He invites those of us seeking to follow Him to give up our own plans for our life – to die to ourselves. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it:
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
What a strange thing to say… Why would I want to die when it feels that I’m just starting to live?
When we read the book of Genesis in the Bible, we read the story of humanity being made: beautifully, in the image of God, to live intimately with God. We didn’t make ourselves; our lives are not our own. But then something broke. We decided to be in control of our lives. To be the gods of our lives. And all of human history is a story of humanity wrestling with the brokenness that ensued from trying to do life on our own terms.
When Jesus invites us to come and die, what He is doing is asking us to lay down this false self-life. To let go of the notion that your life is your own. Because we weren’t made to define and carry our own lives – we can’t. Read it again with me:
Life depends on you. Your life is your own. The weight of your own life rests squarely on your shoulders. You are the master of your fate. You are the captain of your soul (1). It’s what you do that defines you (2). Life is a series of choices: be smart, be wise, don’t screw it up. Don’t disappoint the people around you. Don’t fail – be successful. Onwards and upwards, in all spheres of life. Do you have what it takes?
To me, the most hopeful part of the Gospel is the promise of the restoration of all things. God will make all things new. Jesus has defeated death and temporariness and brokenness.
But alongside this truth, similarly hopeful and particularly liberating, is the fact that my life is no longer my own. The pressure of the success of my life is no longer on my own shoulders. I no longer have to conjure up life and hope and energy and meaning of my own. I have broken ties with the self-life narrative. I surrendered my life when I got baptised in the name of the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit: I went down into the water as a sign of the burial of my false self, and I emerged from the water as a new creation. It’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me. I am alive with a life that’s not mine. My life is again in the hands of my Maker. I am rooted in the life-giving vine that is Jesus, the Son of God. The beauty! The mystery! The freedom! The joy! Amen!
To be honest, I still feel myself tightening up under the familiar pressure of the self-life every now and again. The false self tries to crawl out of the grave. Or the Deceiver manages to feed me a lie that I agree with and make real. Or the anxiousness of the world and the people that surround me (especially in the workplace) rubs off on me, like a magnet turning my heart compass away from true north… Upon a bit of introspection, I normally find that I’ve started believing this lie again that my life – or some part of my life – is my own. This old narrative and all its fear quickly grow back into my being like ivy around a tree.
As soon as I become aware of this – with a nudge from the Holy Spirit, I’m sure – I can remind myself that my life is no longer mine. I remember my baptism, and the fact that old Niel is somewhere in a swimming pool in Linden, Johannesburg. My self-life is dead. I am nothing apart from God. No part of my life is my own – I belong to Him completely. All that I am and do is rooted in Him, comes from Him and is for Him.
As I remove the noise and realign my heart with the truth once afresh, I feel the other magnets around my heart compass drop away, and I feel the ivy around my soul loosen and fall off.
“You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Jesus in John 8:31-32
I feel the pressure removed from my soul. I can feel and breathe God’s freedom and life again. This is a weekly, if not a daily, exercise for me. We live in a broken world, with other narratives warring against the truth of God. Paul knew this very well:
Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Paul in Ephesians 6:10-18
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. Be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
Now, let’s rewrite that first paragraph:
Life depends on God, not you. Your life is no longer your own. The weight of your own life rests squarely on the shoulders of your loving Father. He is the master of your fate. God is the captain of your soul. His love and acceptance and words define you. Life is a journey of becoming with our untamed Messiah, Jesus. Walk with Him, he knows what He is doing. Don’t try to impress the people around you; love them as God loves you first. Keep your eyes on Jesus and follow Him. Other people are in His hands too. With God, in all spheres of this life He gave you. You are God’s beloved son/daughter.
That’s better. That’s true.
God bless you.
the barefoot ascent 