Is He Your King?

Imagine you are having a heart attack. It’s mild at first and you are able to get your spouse’s attention to take you to the ER. Along the way, you realize it’s getting worse and you have the premonition that you will likely die. So, you start telling your spouse what you will miss the most and what you love the most about each kid and particularly, about them.

You arrive at the hospital and the fine folks there take you in immediately and do all that they can do, but as the premonition you received, you have died. You ascend above your body seeing yourself lying dead on the table and arrive in a place that is free from pain and panic; it is clear and peaceful; it is very bright but not such that is blinding. There is only you and one other person standing near, but also far. They are near enough that you can tell they are a person, but far enough that their face is dark.

You say, “I don’t want to be here.”

Then, suddenly, your reality confronts you. You are in a place, a world, in which you know nothing and have never been, and you have just demanded something. Who exactly do you think you are? Do you think you can command God in heaven? You have been given this existence in a wonderful place and have been met at the door. You are as a newborn babe into a new world and yet your heart was willing to confront with a demand.

It was this exact dream that led me to understand that I could follow Jesus. Before this dream, I never understood or accepted that anyone would command me. Jesus might be my Lord as the Son of the one true Living God, but He was not my King, my Commander. And yes, I know that makes no sense. I would follow and do because I was strong enough to do it and decided to do it. I could understand how those actions were the best for society and others, so I’d do it. That would be my part, but it was not because He commanded it. The problem with that reasoning is that no one is strong enough.

We are all in a world, a place, in which we know nothing – yet, we demand continuously. The only reality is that we are alive, having been given life from the Living God, and He is alive. Everything else is distraction. Can you focus on this reality?

Can you accept that He is your King today and you can follow His command simply because He says it?  Will you bend your knee and bow your head to the risen Christ today?  Will you let His command rule over your will?