Where is Your Empty Grave?

This is blog may not be for you, but it's for somebody.

We have to stop sleeping on the power of the Resurrection. If nothing else, every year, it should be our wake-up call. Here's mine...

Hesitation is still my greatest flaw.

My Achilles' heel.

The thorn in my side that will not relent.

This might be hard to believe if you know my history:

Book author. Blogger for five years. Licensed to preach. Nonprofit founder. I do not list these accomplishments to boast, but to paint a picture:

Blogger, okay, at age 50 after going back and forth with God for almost a year.

Book author and licensed preacher, yes, after ten years of incertitude.

Nonprofit founder, sure, after delaying my transition and making myself sick in order to meet someone's expectations.

These are not things I accomplished. These are pieces of my life's divine puzzle that I

kicking and screaming,

debating and deliberating,

finally got done.

And I know I am not the only one who has lived life from a open tomb.

How long would resumes be if they included the time we waste before we take the leap? If we were honest, most of us church folk would have books, not pages. I hear more anointed, Bible-totin', Jesus-filled folks hesitate about stepping of their comfort zones than anyone one else.

And we wonder why the world hesitates to accept Christ...

because we do.

We ask them to follow a Christ we still struggle to believe,

to trust,

to follow

out of complacency and into discomfort,

out of excuses and into uncertainty,

on to the Cross and out of the Tomb.

I submit to you that in many ways we may even be more willing to accept the Cross than the possibilities of an empty tomb simply because the pain is tactile.

Suffering is sensory, but the promise?

What awaits us?

What do we do?

What path do we take?

Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead in a tomb, but he did not schedule Uber Eats to bring him lunch.

He did not ask Mary to shop online and ship a soft pillow, blankets, and clean clothes to the tomb for Lazarus' comfort.

He did not give him a play-by-play of what was to come.

He simply said, "Come forth."

Our procrastination, stalling, oscillation and vacillation calls the possibility of living a resurrected life into question. To paraphrase a famous ol' school gospel song...

Because He lives, will you face tomorrow?

Because He lives, is your fear finally gone?

You say you know He holds the future.

When will life be worth the living just because He lives?

...some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.” ~Luke 24:22-24, New International Version