Have you ever had "one of those days"? I'm sure you know the type of which I speak... little sunshine, sickness or exhaustion, people who take delight in pressing you to a breaking point, too many other people needing things of you, etc. :)

Well, today was "one of those days" for me, and you know, I'm think I'm okay with that. I sat here tonight, trying to figure out what I could have done differently, when I could have been more patient--where I simply could have done better--and I came to one conclusion... In every overwhelming circumstance, I could have given more love. While much of the world never offers as much as is needed, those in the Body of Christ should know that one can never give too much love. Today, I could have listened more, turned the other cheek a few more times, and sacrificed more of my own personal "rights" that I'm so fond of claiming.

There's just one problem with personal rights: as Christians, we surrender such things to our Savior. When we dedicate our lives to Him, He becomes the One Who guards our time, emotions, money, effort, and so many other things. When someone trespasses on my kindness, are they truly affronting me, or is it my Savior whose heart they are wounding? When my efforts are wasted by the insensitivities of others, is it my day which seems a failure, or is it my Redeemer Who mourns that His gift to others is not more willingly accepted?

Where is my focus, my friends? I find myself wondering that more and more, with the passing of each day... Confronted with hatefulness, do I adopt the heart of Christ and find myself viewing the antagonist through Heaven's eyes, or am I simply too concerned critiquing how many of my rights were squelched in the process? It's wrong, and I'm ashamed, but far too often, the latter of the two options is my accepted means for the moment.

I am meant to be Christ to a dying world. I cannot be that, if I continually allow myself to be dying alongside them in a heart drowned by its own resentments. How much better to be "crucified with Christ"--to allow myself to give all I can give, to sacrifice till there is nothing more to be withheld, and to pour forth so much love that people will look on me and know only Heaven could be the source of a devotion so great. It is not easy...no, not at all. Such a commitment will exhaust; such a calling will exact a high price of the giver. It will hurt, sometimes deeply, and more often than contemporary Christians would willingly admit, it will cause death--death to self, death to personal preferences and comforts, death to rights we believe we hold, death to rest and peace, and even death to our pride, which is sometimes the most painful.

There is good news, however. In the midst of "dying" in so many ways and giving up the life we thought we were owed, we begin to find the life for which we were truly meant. Christ's heart within us births love...His love which pours forth from us to a dying world. It is a painful process, but we are united with Christ "in the fellowship of His sufferings," and we begin to live life that knows no bounds. There is nothing more freeing than life in Christ. He leads us to a heavenly home beside Him, and all along the way, He allows us to be His hands and feet to those Who most need Him...that is, if we will allow our Savior to use us.

So, here I stand... I'm humbled by the reality of my own willingness to flee the cross we each must bear, and I'm even more humbled to realize that the same Redeemer, Who once saved me, still seeks to use me--broken though I be--in leading others to His saving embrace.

"I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live,

But Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh

I live by faith in the Son of God,

Who loved me and gave himself for me."

Galatians 2:20

Let us purpose to leave behind the life into which we were first born and embrace the life we were meant to live...a life of quiet devotion, a life of world-changing passion, one of sacrifice and death to self, and a life wherein we give all the love of which we once thought ourselves incapable. Let it not be we who live, but Christ Who lives within us. Then, and only then, will "one of those days" become an opportunity in which we may be Christ to the world in which He's placed us: a reflection of His light to shadowed hearts.