Dying Many Deaths

I was talking to a friend yesterday who has been through the ringer with her oldest daughter. Her and her husband have been through a lot and when you talk to them now you see it all over their faces. They have had to die to themselves many times over in order to put their daughter's needs ahead of their own.

I remember someone once describing a spiritually mature Christian they knew who was on their death bed. He said, "ya know he looked so at ease with the whole thing, almost like he had been through this many times before."

Can you picture Jesus on the cross? His flesh was being brutally put to death and his "self" was being denied (in the garden He said, "not my will, but yours be done"). Jesus had been through death before. Starting in the desert, he put to death the flesh and denied self. The cross just happened to be the last death He went through.

I was at a funeral today of a faithful saint, Brian Ings, who went to be with the Lord way earlier than expected. But as I've watched his wife morn his loss I've noticed that she's died before too. She's already died to what she wants and lives for what God wants. That is what is getting her through this.

I think God gives us plenty of opportunities to die to our flesh and self so that when the real time actually comes...we'll be ready because we will have done it before.