Resurgam

Interestingly, the older I get, the less I realize I know about life in Christ. Sounds kinda crazy, right? You’d think that the longer you follow someone – in part, whole, or some fraction thereof – that you’d begin to think and act like the one you’re following. You’d think that.

I have come face to face with a story that Rich Mullins told once, where an interviewer asked Rich, “When were you born again?” To which he replied, “Which time?” Rich goes on to talk about summer camp, and how the kids there would rededicate their lives to Christ each year. In college, the need to give our lives to Jesus hits us about every 6 months. After college, it’s quarterly. Until, Rich said, we hit our 40’s, where we rededicate ourselves 4 times a day.

Maybe he was joking, but I think only a little.

I flat out guarantee you that I don’t have this Jesus stuff nailed. Isn’t that comforting, to read of an elder at a church admitting to being at times clueless? I think I flirt with following Jesus. I mean, there are times where I get close, but then *poof* it’s back to me being me. I cling to the idea that I now see through a glass darkly, and will one day see face to face. And yet, it is, as Paul declares in Scripture, “a mystery” most of the time. I can remember being so sure of myself, and being so very confident that I had the answers – the right answers – to any Jesus question. Today, I realize that Jesus calls me to die, daily. And in the dying, I know that I will rise again. That’s about it.

That’s what Resurgam means, that “I will rise again.” One Latin word captures for me, hope. Not in me, but in Christ. I trust “that he who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

I may be down but I will rise,
It may be dark but God is light.

AMEN.