Romans 6:8 NLT

'And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him.'

Life makes many unexpected demands of us. As a young man getting married to Katey, and having not had sex before marriage, it was with a measure of both excitement and nervousness that I approached our first night together as a married couple. So with the onset of Katey’s illness and the early ending of that sex life, I learned to love without the erotic dimension of love. The great Christian writer CS Lewis describes the four loves we are gifted with very well. Like a four-engine plane I continued to fly successfully on just three of those engines.

What became apparent was our need to explore a God-perspective upon our circumstances. What died to us in the intimacy of our sexual union created a fresh space in which intimacy with God developed. Does that sound a bit too spiritual for your taste? Well, it is as we experience the reality of death we either find more of God or lose touch completely. Such intimacy is always available to us, yet so often the distractions of life, always far more easily attainable, hinders our spiritual development. This was certainly true for me, and without the path Katey and I were invited to walk together, I don’t think I would have become so aware of the extent of brokenness that impacts life all around us.

I believe I felt that there was a level of Christ I consented to in this life, but that fullness was for some future point beyond death. Now, St Paul’s teaching that just as we died with Christ so we will live with Christ is a present reality. As completely as Christ’s blood forgave me and washed me clean of sin, powerfully symbolised in baptism, so too I now live, present tense, live in the immediate presence of Christ. The impact was huge, for where once MS and our struggle was a negative experience we fought, we were invited to switch perspective and realise the reality of God in the toughest of circumstances. We didn’t hold this position consistently, yet we understood God is now, and not future. Also that God is with us, not simply a means to change what we didn’t like.

QUESTION: From what perspective do you view God from within your circumstances?

PRAYER: Lord, help me see me with your eyes and your perspective, dead to my old self and alive in you.