Earlier this fall, Mark and I had the privilege of speaking at Drury University in Dr. Peter Browning’s class “A Life Worth Living.”
The class examines the quest for meaning in life from several perspectives: Christianity, Buddhism, existentialism, and scientific materialism. We represented a Christian approach. Mark shared the story of his accident at age 24 and the choice he made during the lowest point in his recovery of whether or not to continue serving God when life took an incredibly unexpected turn. I expounded on the students’ assignment which was to read C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity book 4, chapter 8, “Is Christianity Hard or Easy?” Lewis’ answer is yes — it is both.
It is easy in the sense of complete surrender: Christianity is not a process of managing one’s natural self through religious duties. Lewis summarizes Christianity’s conditions: “Christ says, ‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. … I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there; I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth or crown it or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’”
And yet that is the hardest thing we will ever do. What does it cost us to become fully His? It may cost us anything…or everything. This is not at all to say that God causes every event in our lives but rather that there’s nothing He can’t use to draw us closer to our purpose. This gives us another lens for looking at tragedy. If the end goal of Christianity is what the Apostle Paul says — knowing, gaining, and being found in Christ (Philippians 3:8-9) — then we can say along with Paul that our greatest accomplishments and our deepest heartbreaks weigh equal in the scales because we live for something greater than pain or pleasure.
Mark drew on the story of Joseph (Genesis 37, 39-45) when He chose God over despair some 14 years ago. He didn’t know how long he would live or what life would look like, but those concerns were secondary compared to the reasons for being alive in the first place.
This is no Me-Before-You scenario. Loving someone with a drastically different set of life circumstances does not hold either person back from a full life.
One of the hardest verses in the Bible, from my perspective, is Romans 12:1 — “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” This is a You-Before-Me scenario: Once you’re dead, you’ve finished giving; living dead is infinitely harder. It all goes back to the question of Christianity being hard or easy: yes. It is both. And yes, it is a life worth living.
Here in Thanksgiving week, I’m thankful that Mark chose life—and chooses it daily. I’m thankful he chooses to speak about it—which is how I met him. I’m thankful for advances in technology and physical therapy which allow him to work and drive and fish and hunt and live a more adventurous life than most people I know. I’m thankful that today is our dating anniversary—and that we’ll keep on dating as long as we’re living this meaningful life.