1/19/14

From Jim McGuiggan... HELP ME GIVE IT UP

HELP ME GIVE IT UP



This is a particularly difficult thing to speak about at this time. I don’t need to develop the reason right now other than to say that the body and mind of a very dear friend and a great man of God is under attack. I mention the difficulty of speaking about it only so that you won’t think I’m being glib!

Life is and should be precious to us. We see and feel that truth in a million ways don’t we. And why wouldn’t it be this way for most of us? This means that even Christians who believe in life with Christ after death are loath to leave this place with all its warm relationships and sheer pleasure.

Yes, we cheerfully sing, “This World is Not My Home” but it’s the only home we’ve known all our lives and it is God’s gift to us so how could we not, at some level, regret leaving it. Bless me, even at airports when our beloved is leaving for a longish period there are tears and hugs, almost a refusal to let them go. Should it be surprising that we express the fear of “loss” of them in the feverish way we try to prolong their life when it seems clear they are heading out of our lives.
Still, in our bones we know we can’t put off the day forever. It’s appointed! Wouldn’t it be fine if we (not just the dying one—but the family and friends) were so shaped and assured that we could “give them up” in an assured and glorious way?

Not in a life-denying way, mark you, but doing it after we have (as Robert Browning put it) “earned” our death by living life to the full in joyful integrity. There are things worth dying for and there is a time when it’s okay to “lay yourself down with a will,” as Robert Louis Stevenson expressed it.

In the movie, El Cid lies mortally wounded with an arrow deep in his chest. He’s sure to die but his adoring wife wants to prolong it by mere hours by having the arrow removed even though it will weaken him. He resists her pleas because he must address the army that has lost heart because they think he’s dead and think they will have to face the enemy without him. He keeps the arrow and speeds his death so that he can do something worthy of his having lived—a life he has lived so well and honorably. He tenderly tells her, “You can’t save my life. You must help me to give it up.”

We all need that kind of help. When Death comes calling, and will not this time go away without us, we need friends and family to help us give it up in a way that’s appropriate. There aren’t many scenes more impressive than those where vibrant faith in Jesus Christ is facing death with assured sorrow.

But long before we’re on our deathbeds we need that kind of help. We need people to help us not to hoard the life we’ve been given. We desperately need help to keep us from spending it selfishly on our own ease and we need people around us who will help us to be generous with it.
During a dangerous viral outbreak a husband didn’t want his doctor wife to put their life together at risk by getting involved. Who can’t understand that? But who can’t be thrilled and pleased by her response? She told him, “I love you with all of my heart, my dear, but you mustn’t make it hard for me to do what’s right.”
She was telling him, “Help me give it up.”

And then there was the One who faced the most momentous moment in his life and he called on three of his dear friends to come with him to a garden and help him give it up.


©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.