So Long Self, Body of Death

Ride with me down a bumpy road as I delve into the description of our body of death. At the end I will lead us to the other side as prisoners set free, SO LONG SELF!

Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Romans 7:24

Imprisoned to a Body of Death

I am imprisoned in a body of death. I am set as a slave to serve and focus on it.  I’m mindful of its complaints, its aches, and its inconveniences. It plagues me day and night: if not this, that.  It wants, desires, demands and expects.  My involvement is continual and staggeringly consistent.  I wait on it hand and foot.  I serve it as one would a petulant king.  With but a single thought, I notice and succumb to the demands.  I bow when it whines and yield when it calls.  In sickness, I am searching to make it well; in hunger, I passionately seek to satisfy the urge. Like a genie in a bottle, your wish is my command. Take that one in – MY wish . . . is my COMMAND!

I am the endless servant of SELF!

Demands From the Body of Death

I am cold, I am hot, I’m hungry, I’m tired, I need Tums®, I have a headache, fetch me a pillow, bring me a beer, I’ve got to use the restroom, I don’t like sitting this way, that breeze is too strong, that sun is too bright, I can’t think over that noise, this blender won’t work, itch my back, adjust my shoe, brush that hair from my face, my nails are too long, I need to go walk and clear out my head, this is too strenuous, take me back home, my eyes feel dry, my pants are too tight, I feel nauseated, roll over I’m not comfortable, I’m thirsty, turn on the light I can’t see, ooh what is that substance dripping out of my nose . . . on and on the drone of noise issues out from this walled prison. Despot of despots, one I can’t escape.

How else is this body of death affected? My own environment and things that I ingest are killing me slowly by degrees. Things that I must have to survive, poison me in this prison of skin.  Acid rain, pesticides on my food, smog in my air, chemicals in my water, carcinogens in containers that hold my food, toxins injected into or added to my food making it bigger, last longer, or look fresher.  Dead from within and death coming from without.

Deliver me from this BODY OF DEATH!

So Long Self

Solution? Christ! He is my health. He is my own endurance to my own prison. He is my satisfaction. He is the only one who can accept and receive His very own order.  He made me, made this world, made the order of all things, and He will have to be everything in me to receive, accept, and embrace it all.  The answer to all my woes is HE Himself being my life.  I can’t shut my body up from the demands.  I can’t stop eating pollutants, and even if I could . . . it wouldn’t help.  God Himself bound me to a body of death for the purpose of annihilating my independence of HIM. I am not supposed to fix it, adjust it, or change it. No, I am supposed to say yes to His order and surrender to Him who can do it all.  He is the only one who does not rage at the machine.  He is the only one who doesn’t curse God in frustration.  It isn’t what He can do, or does—it is HIM!  He is my only Solution.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I love the visual element to express a spiritual reality. The other day, I saw a video about Roger Flournoy, Jr. and I think He expresses the dilemma of a body of death very well. Though we all experience this body of death by the sheer fact that we each live in it, Roger’s living experience makes it just that much more real!

My prayer for each of us in this body of death, is that Christ will be all the Life, and we can finally say So Long Self. Yes, So Long Self, I’m free from this Body of Death!