Today marks the beginning of five blogs from the book Transformed by Caesar Kalinowski.
In Chapter 1 (“Who Are You”) the author observes that, as Christians, we’re often puzzled that we continue to sin in the same old ways, thus seeing little real change in our lives. Similarly, we may wonder why our doubts, fears, and anxieties always seem to be lurking close by during our desert, transition time following our vocation loss.
Caesar states that there’s great benefit in traditional forms of spiritual discipline such as spending daily time in the Word and in prayer. As Henri Nouwen explained, such disciplines are meant to create time and space for God to act. God’s grace changes us- not the discipline.
When Caesar was on a mission trip to the Sudan and worshipped with Sudanese believers, together they were the church. The Sudanese had no state-of-the-art church facilities. They literally laid down their lives for the sake of the Gospel. They owned nothing (no-thing), yet they were filled with joy. One such young Sudanese man, James, had been walking with his two brothers when radical Islamic soldiers hacked James’ parents to death with machetes in front of the boys. The soldiers then threw James and his brothers onto a burning garbage pile. Only James survived.
Despite these horrific experiences, James exhibited unbelievable joy that God had spared his life and that one day he’d see his family again- in heaven. James had no earthly thing left to put his hope in- but he’d found his very life in Jesus.
Today’s question (from Caesar): How would your life change if you lived solely out of your identity in Christ, as an image-bearer of God? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: the latest addition to Crown’s Annotated Bibliography, One Way Love
