You gave me life.

"You gave me life..."

So many clichés can be easily thrown around in Christianity or just in general in trying to grasp and make an understanding of this life on Earth and life in Christ. What does it really mean though to live a full life? What does His sacrifice and free gift look like and mean to us?

For a while I went about living in bliss and naievity, not knowing much about a life apart from Christ. I was young and had the blessing of living in a decent environment. I would do my chores and happily trot off to take my earnings for a slice of pizza down the street. I got to play sports and had a shot at learning different instruments... simple opportunities that are often taken for granted. I didn't grow up completely sheltered. I had my share of trials and difficulties. I soon learned that not everyone loved God to the extent I would've thought... some didn't even believe that this God who had called me and laid a burden of love on my heart at an early age even existed.

I regularly got questions about why I didn't do certain things or why I was so at peace and calm in certain situations. I began to wonder what was wrong with me. If this wasn't necessarily how most people were what was the difference. I mean I knew that there was a world that needed to know Christ, but even in simplicity and the mundane there is a depth that goes unseen.

Once a friend of mine called me his "holy friend". I had considered my life as a lifestyle of purity, set apart (or holy/wholly) for God, but was that what life was all about. Was that it? I knew what he most likely referred to: a life without doing sinful things or things that people considered bad.

Of course, I knew there was more to life than a checklist and keeping from doing wrong. What I had not yet considered was exactly what this life I was living was truly about. I had never considered it to this extent. With every new experience and day that goes by, though, we grow a little bit more. We grow in knowledge and understanding. We grow stronger, whether we feel we have or not. We learn how to navigate this life on Earth. We learn how to deal with or love the people around us, depending on whether or not you consider yourself just living to get by or living a life of purpose.

It is so easy to live as though you want to just get by, to toss away vision and live just to survive. I've been guilty of that many times. It is truly hard to experience the trials that we face without some point of wanting to give up. We all come face-to-face with fear. We all face nervousness, anxiety, and confusion. It is what we choose to do, how we choose to react at that point that changes everything. It could even be that you decide to entertain the thoughts that come along with fear for a bit. At some point you have to fight back, or you will be easily overtaken. When it fear returns, and inevitably it shall, the cycle will continue.

But I found something in recent boughts of wanting to give up...

Life is more than getting by.
Life is more than a checklist or reaching checkpoints.

It may throw you off what I am going to say next...

Life is about...

Enjoying it.

Don't get me wrong, there are so many more aspects to life and the meaning of it. Like I said, there is a depth that often cannot be fully explained with mere words.

Yet, I found these last few weeks that one difference that Jesus has made in my life is giving me a sense of enjoyment that goes beyond normal fulfillment of desires. He meets every deep need, more so than the immediate needs. And he even chooses to meet immediate needs so that we are taken care of and that we "shall not want" (Psalm 23). It may not be that you have everything you think you need in the walk as a Christian but you learn to "be content in every situation and circumstance" (Philippians 4).

As I described at the start of these thoughts, we learn to grow, whether it is with God or apart from God. He teaches us like a parent with a child and as we prove that we can take more responsibility, He gives it more freely. And as I described enjoying life, He slowly reveals more to us about the beauty of life, in moments that are not always profound: the beauty of dew upon a fallen leave on a misty morning, the twinkle of a toddlers eyes and the crinkling of his face as he laughs, or even the sound of a hummingbird trilling through the trees.

Life is full of these moments. I hope that you begin to find them more and more. And I pray that you begin to dream beyond your wildest imagination.