Where is YOUR Resurrection?

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(ThyBlackMan.com) I was speaking to a close friend earlier this week about the situation of single parenthood she’s found herself in. It’s been a year for her now – a year of joyful motherhood coupled with the frustration of dealing with the biological father who, at times, seems to fight her at every step of the way with the decisions and choices that need to be made for the benefit of their child.

Sometimes it seems as though she’s not excepted the difficulty she’s created for herself – having laid down with a man for the sheer physicality and infatuation of the matter without getting to truly know him (and not in the Biblical sense of the word!). At this point in their forced relationship, she has confessed hatred towards him and almost fantasizes about what it would be like if she’d never even told him about their baby. Had she gotten to know him, she would’ve discovered that he is not the compatible mate for her from the priorities, proclivities and propensities he now portrays.

As such, she bemoans about her struggles with him tirelessly. And while I love this person dearly as my sister in Christ, it has become cumbersome to listen to this story that is literally retold to me every time I talk with her. It has become tiresome because I haven’t heard anything new that she’s doing to/for herself to make the matter better from a Christian perspective. Normally, this subject matter would play itself out as a cautionary retelling of what happens when you sleep with someone you don’t know or about how the complexity of raising a child, hard enough to do on one accord within a marriage, is further intensified when there are two disjointed households involved… but the Spirit of the Lord interjected a question that changed the direction of the conversation for the both of us.

~
Err Apparent
a.k.a.
Cautionary Hightails
M.I.A.-able
Dads err on sides of mea
Culpability.
~

“Where is your resurrection?” This question rang in my mind as clear as a bell. Clear and simple enough that I knew it needed to be posed to my sister in Christ. She had just asked “Why me?!! regarding the drama she had to endure and the sacrifice I explained she would have to make. Aside from the obvious sacrifice that comes along with raising a child, what I was speaking of to my fellow Christian was regarding the love and light of Christ she would have to show this young man by being the bigger person.

The best way to get him to see that this situation would warrant a different expectation and approach on his behalf would be for my friend to respond to him in love. If he spoke harshly to her, she should speak softly, but firmly, to him. If he lost his temper, she’d have to temper hers. If he acted irrational, she would have to hold up rationality on the both of their behalves. If he wanted to keep his child for a week but not give her the details about who would help care for the child while he worked, she would need to respect and find peace with that.

These reactions, to me, are Christ-like actions – the only type of actions that can speak to a person who does not know the decency of righteousness that Christians are supposed to show. Granted, this is easier said than done but the only person my friend can work on with the expectation of any positive change is herself.

So as she responded about the hardships of being the bigger person and began to rehash past grievances, I began to see Jesus in His moments leading up to being hung on the Cross for our salvation. And so, when she aired out her frustrations yet again, I followed up with these questions:

– Why Jesus?
– Why did He have to sacrifice Himself for people who hadn’t even been born yet or would act stiff-necked even after accepting His salvation?
– Why did He have to be beaten and whipped so?
– Why/how did He take that in silence as a lamb led to the slaughter/shearer?
– Did He dwell on these questions or did He focus on the work that it would take to resurrect?
– When will YOU begin to put in the work it will take you to resurrect from your situation?

Though these questions were directed to someone else and had come from my mouth, it had proceeded from my mouth as a doubled-edge sword that pierced me as well. That’s when I knew it wasn’t really me positing the questions as much as it was the Spirit of God depositing them into my mind to relay to the both of us. That’s when I knew YOU needed to hear them as well.

What abuse from your past have you dwelled on that is keeping you in dead works – recycling the garbage of your past instead of redirecting your efforts towards the work that it will take to rise with/in Christ into the eternal life of a creature that has been formed anew?

Jesus was in the earth (His tomb) for three days and three nights. Do you know the level of work that was needed for Him to come back from such a brutal death to defeat sin, descend into hell (the weigh station of all spirits that pass from their earthly lives consisting of what Luke 16:19-26), referred to as Abraham’s bosom for those who have been saved through faith juxtaposed against the lake of fire reserved for the faithless), return to the earth AND ascend to the right-hand of God?

Jesus’ resurrection was no small feat but He did it. And if He can come back from that, why in the hellishly selfish situations we willingly place ourselves in, can’t you and I?!!: