Resurrection

I was thinking and praying this morning, and realized that I have been on autopilot. Not only have I been on autopilot, I chose a boring, dirt road to wander down. What do I mean by this? Well, I've chosen laying under the covers way too long every morning over the warmth and refreshment that talking to God can bring. I've not really prayed much, because I've allowed myself to think that when I bring the same thing up to God over and over again, He gets tired of me. Deep down inside I know this is not true, but I think I can confidently say that those thoughts happen to myself and others quite often. I've not allowed myself to dream about what will happen when we are in Australia. This is a big deal, because when we stop thinking about and praying for the moms, brothers, and wives that we'll meet in Australia this whole mission becomes about us pushing through to a goal that we've stubbornly set for ourselves, instead of faithfully taking a path that God has cleared for us. Whenever I find myself in this funk I like to think about the words that Paul said back in the day, "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you". This morning as I was thinking about those words, God took my thoughts to another place that I'd like to share.
Let's think about the resurrection in reverse order. Jesus was raised from the dead, and that same power of God that brought a dead man to life is living in me. Pretty awesome. But to be resurrected, you must be dead, and before that you must have died. That might seem redundant, but there really is a huge difference between dying and being dead. I personally think the former has the potential to be much worse. This is where God took me today, in order to accept the joy of being given new life we have to accept that sometimes we are going to have to experience death. This could actually be the death of a loved one or close friend, but it really goes much further than that. Let's face it, really bad things happen all the time in our relationships, around us, because of us, etc. Stick with me, the connection is coming. We can't expect to fully appreciate the fact that we are living a resurrected life until we've been brought out of something that just about killed us. This is where autopilot comes in. In order to not feel the burden of death in my life, I often just avoid it all. I don't experience the good, life changing, life bringing opportunities in my own and others' lives because I don't want to experience the bad. However, what I end up with is a life traveled on an ugly, dirt road with no joy, memories, or life.