"Sometimes we want God to be more committed to the ‘quality of our lives’ than the quality of our character. God is far less interested in making sure your life goes well and everything goes smooth and far more interested in carving and shaping you into the kind of human being that you were created to become. To live a life of extraordinary courage." — Erwin McManus, "Extraordinary Courage"
Neo took a pill and woke up in a tub of goop. He’d gone in search of the Matrix and taken the pill on the promise he would find it. He didn’t know that the only way to discover the truth of the Matrix was by being unplugged from it. But he found out.
Over 7 years ago I prayed a prayer and woke up in my own tub of goop. I’d gone in search of the promised and seemingly mythical Abundant Life. I wanted to live, really live, and know that God was responsible for the Life I experienced (Ezek 37:14). I’d lived a safe and sane life, one that promised happiness and ease. But I was decided unhappy, and wholly dissatisfied. I wanted to be a spiritual Jackie Chan, jumping off high places in the name of Jesus and doing all manner of amazing and crazy things for His pleasure. I wanted to risk it all and see what happened. I’d been a Christian since I was 6 and a true, committed follower of Jesus for nearly 5 years, and I had no idea I was still connected to the Matrix. Or perhaps I’d been unplugged years ago, but just hadn’t awakened…
After my prayer my life went crazy. Everything from relationships to job and living situations were turned upside down. I went overseas, first for 4 months, then for what I believed was the rest of my life. I sold everything that wouldn’t fit in my 300 sq. ft crate and left my own country and old life behind. I jumped off that spiritual cliff. I thought I was finally getting "plugged in". But in reality, I was just like Neo; I’d been flushed from the Matrix and was now living in a far different world than what I thought I’d find. Looking back now I see that it wasn’t until I prayed that prayer and took the "whatever You say I’ll do and where ever You go I’ll follow" pill that I began to live the unplugged life. Isn’t it amazing that a Christian, even a follower of Jesus, can still live under the influence of the Matrix, to still live a life plugged in, still believing the in the false images given us by the enemy of our souls?
When you think of Abundant Life, what are words that immediately come to your mind? Shout ’em out right now. Turn them over in your mind for a few moments. Here are some of mine: Joy. Fulfillment. Satisfaction. Contentment. Hope. Overflowing love.
If I was brutally honest I would also include: Purposeful, dynamic, larger-than-life, powerful and power-filled, filled with positive emotions and with confidence, courage and character.
Words that I would never have associated with Abundant Life were things like: agonizing, utter discontentment, painful and pain-filled, uncertainty, fear, confusion, dissatisfaction, anger, frustration, sometimes overwhelming hopelessness, just plain overwhelming, powerlessness, helplessness and brokenness.
There’s a character in the movie (Cypher?) that betrays our heroes, Neo, Morpheus and Trinity, because he’s fed up with the dank, crusty, gritty, tasteless, pain-filled unplugged life. He wants to be reintegrated into the Matrix and he wants to have no memory of his life outside.
I understand him. I understand his longing, his ache. I understand his betrayal of all that is heroic to fully embrace blissful ignorance in order to regain contentment with the illusions I once had of what life was really all about.
I understand because I feel it. I’m there, man. I’m there. I understand the desire to give anything to go back to living a life of illusion and ignorance. I would almost give anything to live back in the illusion; the lie that a great job, a nice car, a husband and kids and all the other trappings of this world could bring me happiness and fulfillment. Heck, I would even take the churchy Matrix that loving God and serving in some ministry will bring me success and fulfillment beyond my dreams.
We as the church, as the body of Christ, have done ourselves and all our descendants such wrong! We have believed and perpetuated a lie about the true nature of the Abundant Life Jesus comes to bring. We’ve bought a bill of goods that is just as fake and untrue as the Matrix.
Jesus Himself said, "In the world you will have many troubles… they will persecute you as they have persecuted me… take up your cross and follow me…" And yet we tell ourselves that if we serve God He will make sure we’re at peace, that we don’t get seriously hurt, and that all the bad things that happen to us (because surely we will have bad things happen, we’re not that naive) will not get us down for long, and won’t be too horrific or unbearable (He does promise us that we won’t be given anything we can’t handle, doesn’t He?). What kind of picture of Abundant Life does this all leave us with? Life will be good, in that happily-ever-after kind of way.
It never occurs to us that living life unplugged from the Matrix means a life of running and dodging, of striking the enemy then going into stealth mode to avoid capture. That it will mean living in rags, eating slop more fit for pigs than people and living with the scars and implants of our former, Matrix-ed life. Scars that, oddly enough, are the very way we reconnect to the Matrix in order to rescue those still trapped within. Paul’s life, Stephen’s life, the lives of the other apostles are all anomalies. It doesn’t happen that way anymore. Our sacrifices are on a much smaller, more containable, manageable scale.
Or so we tell ourselves.
Since being unplugged those years ago, I have experienced more heartache, more heartbreak, more agony, pain, suffering, anxiety, and overwhelming fear than I ever did in my life in the Christian Matrix. I have never been more dissatisfied with life on this earth, never been more frustrated with the here and now, never been more anxious about not only the unknown future but the next step I see before me as well.
I struggle daily with the realities of my unplugged life. The Matrix calls my name, sometimes shouts it so loud I can’t hear anything else. Don’t get me wrong. I have good days. Days when I feel like I can conquer anything that comes my way because God is with me. Moments when all the pieces come together and I catch a glimpse of the whole picture, and it is glorious, beautiful beyond compare and I get it. Lapses of happiness, contentment and fulfillment. But they are momentary and fleeting. I don’t live there, I just visit from time-to-time. Many days I cower in fear of every little noise. Those days get pretty dark. And last week, for various reasons not worth mentioning here, was really dark.
In those days I beg Jesus to let me come home. Life can get too dark sometimes, you know? For me, the last 4 years have been full of darkness, with occasional shafts of light. Yet I believe. I believe. I believe God. That He does love me. That there is a plan, a reason for all this.
So a battle rages within me. I struggle between my heart’s desire to be done with this "life" and move into the eternal life beyond, and God’s pull, ever so strong, to stay connected and engaged in the here and now, the gritty unplugged life He’s brought me into.
"As long as I’m alive in this body, there is good work for me to do. If I had to choose right now, I hardly know which I’d choose. Hard choice! The desire to break camp here and be with Christ is powerful. Some days I can think of nothing better." — Paul, Letter to the Philippians 1:22-23, The Message
Every day I wake up and I’m still in the here and now. So I know there is some reason for me to be here. Some purpose left undone.
Last week I cried out again, in my darkness, and I asked God, "why am I here? Why am I alive?" He answered with a question:
"Am I not enough?"
Yeah, let that one sink in a moment.
I have a decision to make. Is He enough? Am I willing to let Him be enough? I don’t think I’d ever really understood the old Christian phrase until I heard Jesus whisper it to me last week:
"Live for Me. Live. For. Me."
Am I willing to live for Him? Not in that sweet, fluffy, dreamy way it comes across in my happier, brighter moments, but in the gritty, ‘Zion-bound’ way of the Matrix heroes? Not in the sense of, "yes, I live because I owe Him my life." But in the, "yes, because You love me and because You ask, I will do it, even though it’s not my first (or second or… 15th…) choice. I will live because You ask and I love You. And only because."
Is that enough? Is that righteous? Is this what "dying to self" really is?
I wish I knew.
I only know this is where I choose live because of love. Unplugged.
