Remember the Height from which You Have Fallen

When I first heard this assignment, I had somewhat of a bad attitude towards it. I heard the words, ‘Identity Gap’ and tuned out. To me that sounded like some emotional quick-fix for new Christians, or people struggling with self-esteem. I didn’t think anything was inherently wrong with the assignment, I thought it would be great for other people and surely makes them feel really good about themselves, but having heard about my inheritance as a Christian so much in my life already, it just didn’t give me the same warm fuzzy feeling as it would have years ago when my relationship with God was just beginning.

So, a few days went by without me even thinking about the assignment. I went to work, went to school, went to church, cleaned the house, spent time with my girlfriend, spent a lot of time watching football and playoff baseball, and even did a bit of homework and Bible study. It was an ordinary week. Then, when Monday evening came around, and I refreshed myself on what the upcoming assignments were, I revisited this assignment. Pulling the crinkled up little pamphlet out of my backpack from where it had sat all week, I looked over it with the same bad attitude I had before. But then, God convicted me of something.

What He brought to my attention was that I was viewing this little pamphlet all wrong. What I first approached as a just a cute little list of compliments that I didn’t feel the need for, now looked to me like a deeply thought out love-letter. Addressed to me, from the one I love, who put effort into it and even His own blood into it so that those “compliments” would actually be truths. Truths that were calling me to reevaluate the effort I was putting forth in the relationship. And I kind of ignored it. I treated it as if it were just stale flattery and as if there was nothing wrong with our relationship.

I scoured the areas of the Bible which I knew addressed this topic and landed on Revelation 2:4-5:
“You have forsaken the love you had at first. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.”

Praying over this verse, I remembered how I used to study God’s Word so obsessively. How often I used to spend time alone in prayer and in intimacy with Him. I used to wake up at the butt-crack of dawn just to find a quiet place where I could sit with Him. I used to take every opportunity to spend a day away with Him, or to have a staycation at home with Him. Back when I didn’t let work, or school, or other pressures and cares of the world, or even service to Him take place over intimacy with Him. That was my height to remember.

Remembering the height from which I had fallen in our relationship made me realize how much I had neglected intimacy with God, and how I had fallen into what Jesus warned about when he spoke of the cares of this life growing up to choke out the good seed.

Now God was calling me back to the way things used to be. Back to the “honeymoon period,” back to the “mushy stuff” described in the Song of Songs that is so intimate it’s almost uncomfortable to read. Instead of seeing those words as some emotional quick-fix, I now see them as a love letter. An invitation to spend time in the loving embrace of my ‘first love.’

There must be time for Him, just to love Him and have Him love us, no other agendas, no lists of prayer requests. These may come later, but we need to put loving Him first, because only as we are filled with His love, do we have love to give away. So many Christians cannot rest in His presence but must be constantly on duty … Our highest calling is to intimacy with the living God. (Carol Arnott)

First Impressions, Last Goodbyes, and a Two Foot Wooden Cross

This last week while carrying my cross, I was not approached by a single stranger asking why I have it or what it means. Most likely because I have such a muscular and intimidating frame. My friends and coworkers on the other hand, have been full of questions. Sadly, most of them were just trying to be funny.

Here is a list of all the questions I was asked this week:

Why is there a giant cross on your back?

What uh, whatcha got there?

Why do you have a cross?

Are you carrying around a roadside cross? Cause that's a really sad thing to carry around.

Is that one of those things they put on the side of the road after a car accident?

Who died? (With a smug look on my face I answered, "Jesus. But on the third day he rose again.")

What kind of powers does it have?

If I touch Adrian with it, will it burn him?

You made this? Is it heavy? Do you really take it everywhere with you? Do you have to sleep with it? Do you shower with it? Do you take it into the bathroom with you? (Makes a sour face) If you lose it will you go to Hell?

Are you embarrassed of it?

Have people been asking you about it?

Have any Jews gotten mad at you yet?

If he didn't mean it literally, why are you doing it?

Have you converted anyone yet?

Where do you have to take it?

Now, even though most of the questions I was asked were jokes, it wasn’t completely fruitless. I was able to have a lot of conversations about the reasoning behind this project with my friends and coworkers.

And God taught me something else…

You see, Monday was my last day at Levi’s. The whole night it was a running joke that my coworkers were taking mental photographs of random moments to remember me by. At the end of the night, as my coworkers and I were walking to our cars, one of my coworkers made the comment, “There he goes. We’ll always have this mental image of him walking away with a giant cross on his back.”

How fitting is it that the last time most of them will ever have seen me, I had a two foot wooden cross slung over my shoulder? 

Then, on Tuesday morning, I worked my first day at Costco. As I walked into the warehouse at 6A.M.—cross slung over my shoulder—the first thing a lot of them noticed about me was the two foot wooden cross on my back.

Its funny how this project fell on the week of both my last day at Levi’s and my first day at Costco. Because of this timing, some peoples' last memory of me will be me walking away with a big wooden cross on my back, and others' first impressions are me walking up, also with a cross on my back.

This is how our lives are supposed to be aren’t they? Not just when we have radical assignments from our Christian school. We are always supposed to live in a way that—as boldly as a two foot wooden cross—causes The Cross to be both the first thing people notice when they meet us, and the last thing they remember when we say goodbye.