Word For The Day: Galatians 2:20, NIV

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

When my daughters were still young, I woke up one morning with a feeling analogous to an existentialist dilemma: life is temporal but there is a need to find happiness and meaning in the midst of futility. I know about the glorious hope that we all have in Christ Jesus and the unimaginable rewards at His return but somehow, somewhere in my heart I had this irrational, selfish wish that His coming would be later rather than sooner. I wanted my daughters to grow up and experience life. I guess I myself wanted to live my life and add to the modicum of success I have built to that point. Then life expectedly gave its unexpected twist: my wife was diagnosed with cancer. 

Now after many years since she passed away, I am amazed at the magnitude of change the direction our lives took on: the desperation of turning to God to get her healed; the growing of faith that healing necessitated; clinging to hope as things turned from bad to worse; and the love God nurtured in us despite giving us a different kind of healing than what we expected.

Godly repentance requires a complete 180-degree turn towards the opposite direction: every step brings us closer to Him. When we accept the grace made available through faith in what Christ has done for us, we become a new creation. We become a child of God. A child led by His Spirit to be a salt of the earth, a light to the world, and the praise of His glory (2 Corinthians 6:18, Romans 8:14, Matthew 5:13-14, Ephesians 1:12).