Life and Death and More Life
February 15, 2024 | By Hannah Turner BK ‘23+1
image description: leaves on a plant dying
I fear the lack I might have if I sleep eight hours every night or spend that extra time talking to my roommates or read that article I found so interesting. My Google Calendar is booked—where did the time go? My motivation is dwindling—where did my passion go? I tell myself to lock in, to focus and get things done.
I’m on the roof of a parking garage thinking about how I can do better. I look to the hills. Where does my help come from?
In high school, I would motivate myself by watching one of two things: Shia LaBeouf’s “Just Do It” commercial or Mulan’s “I’ll Make A Man Out of You” song. There was something about the carpe diem posture of them that made me want to pull myself up my own seemingly insurmountable pole. They were an invitation to see myself as part of an action-packed adventure story. But I’m graduating college soon, and the adventure has dulled a bit. I ask myself why.
When I look to the hills, I see the vast array of Yale buildings—libraries, classrooms, laboratories. They seek to define life here by what you read, say, and innovate. They offer me a space where I can help myself. I take up a new heap of responsibilities this semester. I can do it. Just do it. And everything is good for a while, great even. Life bursts with the promise of adventure until the routine becomes mindless. It’s just another class, another paper, another day of stress.
In thinking like that, my only motivation was myself and pulling myself together. My idea of meaning was too small, too individualized. Forgetting the life-giving source of motivation and passion and happiness in God only causes those things to slowly and surely die.
In Deuteronomy 30, God says He has “set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity” and that following in His ways brings life. My help comes from the Lord—the Maker of Heaven and Earth—His ways can never be too small. But what does it mean to walk in His ways? In Luke 9, Jesus directly addresses this question.
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?” (Luke 9:23-25)
Deny myself, take up my cross, and surrender to the will of God—that is the avenue to a life of abundance. This does not mean denying my responsibilities nor does it mean lacking in ambition. But it means asking what am I responsible to and for what am I ambitious? God knows that the answer to those questions and the joy of life-giving purpose is found in Him.
There is no lack when one is with God. There is no more death; God defeated death in Christ.
Denial may at first feel like loss, like lack, but the Author of creation shows His strength in my weakness. He knows rest is restoring and relationships are central and that my mind is a gift. He knows how I can be who I was made to be.
If I grip for more time and try my best to be more passionate, it all disappears. But when I pray, “Lord, You were always the one in control. Here is my calendar and my anxieties. Take them and guide me to be in step with how You want me to move” it all grows. My desires are transformed in prayer. I have more time for homework and more time with friends. I have joy.
I have life and life abundant.
Lent 2024