Clung.

If you have a lot, it’s hard to imagine having to let go of any of it. Even if you have a little, it’s hard to part with anything. But you may be compelled to be less materialistic. Yet even if you manage to let yourself part with “things”, it’s hard to be quiet about it. If you should manage to let go of a great many things, it is a struggle to remember the reason you needed to let go. We struggle to let go of the things that give us security and identity. We hang on to our possessions for more reasons than are evident in the original purchase. And even if we manage to benevolently give it all away, we then find ourselves taking up the identity of the one who benevolently gave it all away. Nobility comes not from doing the right thing, but doing the right thing without drawing attention to it. At either extreme: indulgence or destitution, we find the end of ourselves. Our reaction in this is significant. Will we feel righteous, guilty, condemned or repentant? One puffs up, one sulks, one buries himself and the last runs humbly toward freedom. Contentment in any scenario has to do with letting go of our very selves and attaching our very selves to something greater.

Now instead of letting go, imagine you are clinging to something. Have you ever been so terrified and excited on a ride that your only thought is to get back to safety? Could you imagine riding bareback on a wild horse, with no thought of anything but to just hold on as tight as you can? Have you ever hugged someone with such intensity that you think you might become one with that other person? When you were a child, can you remember being lost? And do you also remember the relief of being found? Can you imagine losing a child, and what you’d give to get them back, and how tightly you would hold them if you could have them in your arms again?

In these descriptions we have the beginning of understanding what it means to give ourselves to Christ. If Jesus is real, and I believe with all my heart and all of my reasoning that he is, then it makes complete sense to surrender to him, to give up our very selves because we trust that there is something bigger at work. The reason Jesus Christ stands out as radical and different amongst belief systems is that in Christ we have God saying, “It is done.” There is nothing we can do to earn our way, do better, try harder, overcome more…it is precisely that salvation is not in our own efforts but born out of his Love for us that makes it so real and amazing and hard and wonderful. We will always come to the end of ourselves. When we do, in life, we find a uniquely significant moment to give ourselves to Jesus. And when we come to the end of ourselves in death we may find ourselves still clinging to some baggage. We may have put our identity in our home or our children or our success or our desire to be the victim or desire to have control over others, money, sex, self-righteousness. All of these things prevent us from truly clinging to the power and the glory that is our God, Jesus. I’ve heard it said, “Heaven is only heaven because Jesus is there.” This makes sense to me. In all things he is everything, so in Heaven this everything would be expressed to the fullest. Heaven then is standing at that final terminal, getting your first full view of the awesome glory of God and then shedding everything to be with him, holding on so tight, with such reckless abandon that you forget yourself and become one with him. This is why the glimpses of Heaven, of Jesus that we have in the here-and-now move us so. They are the whispers of the magnificence of the here-after.