Too often we block our own view of Christ. Yet when we look around ourselves and our present circumstances to the cross and who we are in Him, we suddenly discover fresh beauties to behold.
Jobless, Single, Penniless: Letter to a Man in Despair
The following is a response I wrote to a person who had sunken into despair over what he felt to be his sorry circumstances in life. He publicly lamented that he was shadowed by “a particular agony and frustration building from joblessness, singleness, and pennilessness that found expression in intense anger, jealousy, and envy toward others who ‘have it all’.”
I empathized with his position and grief. Besides the usual share of hard lumps, I consider the period from August 2009 to June 2010 to have been among the worst periods of my life in terms of desperation and listlessness. Yet this was also the time when I came to grips with my circumstances through an intense, albeit somewhat unintentional study of what it means to be “in Christ” both personally and providentially. I learned that it is one thing to say, “it is no longer I who lives, but Christ” and another to embrace the paradigm practically and heartily. From this vantage I wrote as follows,
