Please don’t misunderstand me I know what I am about to say is moronic. I sat on the verge of updating my Instagram feed. I realized, in that moment, (because I am a narcissist) that this post wasn’t going to get very many likes. Which, of course, shot pangs of loneliness through my entire consciousness. Ok, In all seriousness I wasn’t going to post the picture though.

As stupid as this is I used it as an opportunity to do a tiny amount of soul searching. The world is a lonely, circumstantial, and conditional place. The second you stop performing this world will reject you or set you aside. If your circumstances were to change people’s view of you would too. Even your closest human relationships would fail you if the cost was too high. Rejection, shame, loneliness, and isolation are the worst weapons this world could use against our fragile psyche. Think of the people who have reached the pinnacle of our societies pyramid scheme. Wealthy business owners, actors, musicians, the coolest kid at your high school etc. The market crashes, a few box office flops, a nasty divorce, a bad album release, weight gain, turning 40 (especially for women in our pathetic world). All of a sudden the mountain they seemed to have summited turns out to be a game of Jenga nearing the end. Even if you limbo low enough to make it to the end of your life with all of your money, fame, and reputation death is a swift reminder that everything you have worked for will spiral into irrelevance for as long as it takes for you to be utterly forgotten.

The honest truth is that we have no way of overcoming these truths on our own. Happiness (or whatever you want to call it) is a carrot on a stick and we are on a treadmill in a different room and the door is locked.

If there was a way, a better one, to be truly human would you give it a shot? By truly human I mean an existence that is not ruled by the fear of failure, rejection, embarrassment, loneliness, or insignificance. A life where the brokeness we all feel isn’t what determines our outcome. A life where even death isn’t the truest thing about all of us.

I would challenge you to not stop reading here. Jesus, on many occasions, says that the only way to that kind of life is by choosing to die to a life ruled by anything other than God. For example, if what you want the most is acceptance then rejection (or the fear of it) rules your life. Everything you do is a reaction to rejection. But, if you gave up being accepted, rejection would have no hold of you. You would be free to live for what you thought was most important without reservation. An added bonus is that when you did receive acceptance you would be free to enjoy it for what it is. Acceptance is a beautiful thing when it doesn’t rule your life. This works for everything in life jobs, money, friendships, parenting, boyfriends, girlfriends, popularity, and self esteem alike. It doesn’t make dying to ourselves easy it just makes it meaningful. I honestly think that when Jesus said “whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” He was telling the truth.

The Christian message is that Jesus took on all of those things (shame, loneliness, rejection, violence, sin, death, etc) and won. He exposed the fact that none of those things have any power when faced with God’s self-sacrificial love. You would be skeptical of a personal trainer that was out of shape. This person telling you to die to your laziness either hasn’t put forth that effort themselves or their methods don’t work. That is why we can trust Jesus when He says that true life comes from death, He did it first. He was the only one who could pave the way for us to be truly human and He did. Ever since then Christians have been following Jesus into death (even literally) and finding true life.

When Jesus is on the cross He surveys everything that just took place and says “it is finished”. The treadmill has been unplugged. The door is unlocked. We can now enjoy the carrot that was on the stick because we don’t need it. It’s just a yummy carrot.

Guess what? I posted that picture and it seriously underperformed the rest of my grams… and that is profoundly ok with my soul when I remember that Jesus winning means that I can lose. Jesus dying means I can die too (hopefully in ways more important than Insta but you gotta start somewhere). I pray that we would all loosen the grip we have on the things of this life that can’t live up to the hype. Life (and death) with Jesus means that we are free to live for the kingdom of God without reservation and even enjoy life along the way.