I’ve never thought I was very good at taking a stand. I wanted to be good at it but, I’m afraid I will loose everything. I have lots of convictions and opinions about those convictions but very rarely am I willing to lay everything down for the good of another. I also bought into the lie that taking a stand meant having to do something elaborate or extreme. I’m learning however that taking a stand is all in the details of the way you live your life. Taking a stand is simply choosing to sow into life instead of death.
Why do I believe this? I read this passage in Numbers. It is chapter 16 verses 41-50. Here is the set up. The nation of Israel is complaining yet again and God is kind of over it so He intends to consume them with plagues. Moses then commands Aaron to do a couple of things to make atonement for the Israelites sins. In verse 48 it says “He took his stand between the dead and the living”
While I was at training camp the past week this passage kept running through my head. All I could think is “this is the thing we are called to do.” Take our stand between the living and the dead so that God’s kingdom may come here and now. So the lost, broken, and hopeless may experience life through the grace found in a loving God.
The baby in the picture above is Baby Mercy. She is my sweet baby niece and holds a piece of my heart. I adore her. She is such a picture of life to me. Everything is ahead of her. There is a calling over her life. That calling is the same as ours and by the grace of God she will live it out. The cemetery is obviously the dead. The thing that we are called to do is stand at the gates of the cemetery so that God can breathe life into dead bones so that they may live out their calling.
That is why I do what I do. Why I go to lock-ins, ride school buses for 24 hours, hang out twice a week with students, serve food in a shed on the side of the street, and travel to Cambodia, Thailand, and India. I want to go to the gates of that cemetery take my stand and see the dead raise up from their grave. I want to take my stand by sowing into things that bring life in big ways and in the details.
At camp I experienced one of the toughest spiritual battles of my life. I know it is because taking your stand between the dead and the living is hard. It is hard to leave a land surrounded by life and stand at the gates of death. It requires preparation, training, and action. God is teaching me how to fight. Fight for the lives of others.
So my question for you today is this…
Where are you taking a stand now?
How are you preparing for the next cemetery you are called to approach?