“The only hope we have is to accept the fact that we’re already dead. We naturally resist this. We would prefer to navigate between what our desires crave, while remaining in control of our lives. We will be respectable but leave our primary idol . . . still intact.”- John Ortberg
“We were all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there’s still hope. But [Private] Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to function as a soldier’s supposed to function.”- Lt. Speirs, Band of Brothers, Episode 3
In Step 3A (“Become Willing”) of Steps, John Ortberg notes that in Band of Brothers, fear paralyzes Private Blithe. As a result, Blithe fakes injury to avoid battle. Also, he hides in a foxhole to evade danger.
However, Pastor Ortberg points out, as long as Blithe believed he could function as a soldier with the goal of self-preservation, he existed in a state of living death. So, as Lt. Ronald Speirs counseled, Blithe needed to accept that fact that he was already dead. Hence, when Blithe accepted that fact, it rescued him from his old life. Now he lived for something nobler and higher than mere survival.
Consequently, as C. S. Lewis puts it in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, we find ourselves akin to an honest-but-reluctant person paying taxes. We grudgingly pay them. But we hold out hope that enough money remains for us to do what we want. In addition, writing in Beyond Personality, Lewis asserts the difference in the Christian way: both harder and easier. Lewis states:
“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 have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good (emphasis John’s).’ ”
Today’s question: In what Christian sense must we accept the fact that we’re already dead? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Death to the self = surrender”