Sex For Sale devotional | Tuesday, March 24
Monday, March 23, 2009 at 11:20PM We’ve been talking about the idea that reducing people to their physical sexuality reduces both them and us to something less than human. Rob Bell tackles the same issue in Sex God in his chapter on Angels and Animals. If you check out the endnotes in the back of the book, you’ll read this:
“Being fully human is our job. Thinking and laughing and arranging and creating and relating and designing and nurturing and responding and reacting and pondering when googling became a verb and wondering and exploring and meditating and acting and making long lists of verbs and calling and talking and feeling and sharing and doubting if this paragraph is ever going to end and teaching and learning and jumping on a trampoline and sighing and celebrating and dancing and turning to the person next to you and saying: ‘This is living.’
“You can make your own list because you know what it is that makes you feel alive, what it is that feeds your soul, what it is that reminds you that the goal is to be fully human. What’s on your list?”
That’s the question today. What is it that makes you feel alive? What is it that reminds you that you’re human? Can you remember the last time you felt like more than a warm body? When was the last moment when you felt like everything was integrated, when your emotions and your brain and your passions and your talent and your history and your hopes all came together in a moment of experience? When is the last time you felt a deep, deep conviction in your soul that said, “THIS IS ME!” Not some kind of fatalist resignation that says, “this is me… I’m stuck with this crap.” Rather, some grounded, resolute discovery that you’re neither angel nor animal, neither all-spirit nor all-flesh, but some integration of the two.
Was it your last camping trip? How about when you quit that job that was sucking the life out of you and woke up the next morning feeling like yourself for the first time in ages? Or that time when you were able to treat the people you love the way you’ve always wanted to, but haven’t always been able to?
Don’t those moments deliver something so different than the empty craving of a lustful encounter? Consider what Jesus said:
“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
John 10:10
When have you experienced something that felt like life to the full? Feel free to jump in on the comments.
God, don’t let us settle for a half-human existence. Don’t let us sell ourselves short. Restore a hunger in us for deeply human living in which we rediscover the people You made us to be.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
Reader Comments (4)
When I was growing up I didn't have a very good father figure. The day my son was born I made a promise that I would be everything that my father wasn't. What makes me feel alive is when I am able to help him grow not only in a sense of adventure, but spritiually. We will buy toys for kids who have no toys, or box food for the people who have little to no food. We will also explore this earth for bugs, worms, and other awesome creatures. Stretching him a little each step of his young life has stretched me, and makes me feel alive.
Agreed @ Tim. I feel completely alive when I play with my friends' children. They are completely unique - each different - but filled with energy, life, zeal, curiosity, wonder. They are closer to being reflections of God's "life to the fullest" than some adults. I feel overjoyed when I see them and sometimes feel lonely when I leave them.
If we could relate to each other with this type of creativity - free to laugh, explore, cry, run, dance - I wonder how hard the earth would shake? It would be amazing.
I also feel alive when I am alone in the mountains. The see the world in a different scale. It brings a sense of magnitude to God's wonder.
Lastly, music makes me feel alive. I was excited to read that live music is "sexual" in Sex God. Meaning that is a gift given to us by God and is a means of connectedness. I wonder how many people listen to and truly enjoy music without realizing that it is a God design. If they only knew. Amazing.
My prayer to God: God, help to fill my life with your desires. Whether it be music, mountains, or rug rats let me continue to seek those things that bring life and connectedness to You. The other desires leave me empty. You know this and so do I. As the worship song goes - "Fill us up and send us out." I love you God. Thank you for Jesus' sacrifice. Amen.
I dont want to sound like a broken record but I always feel more alive when I am spending quality time with my children. They really bring the joy out of life. Whenever, I feel down all they need to do is smile or laugh and I remember what really matters in this hectic and crazy world.
I also believe I hadnt felt truly alive in years until I got the call that my divorce was actually final. I had lived in limbo for so long and had settled for half-human existence living with my husband. So knowing that I was single again and completely free to be my own person felt like a release I had never felt before in my life.
Thank the Lord for second chances and new beginnings.
For me I feel most alive when I am standing in front of a classroom or helping students in my class. It is really only during that time that I feel I have real purpose on this earth. Everything else I do seems to not really matter to those I do them with, but I long for community so I stick with it. Is it wrong to stick with something when you feel you do not contribute but long for the community with the people you are with during that time?