"Because You are more than enough...."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death."   

There are two types of death.

A submissive death and a resistant death.  

It was stated by a man who witnessed Bonhoeffer's execution, "In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God."

You see, the Nazi regime executed Bonhoeffer, but they didn't just execute him, they stripped him of all his clothing, led him to the execution yard, and hung him.

Think about that a moment in slow motion. 

I'd say Bonhoeffer knew intimately the validity of his words.

Perhaps that's why they are not so easily forgotten.  His life did not just echo an understanding of Christ and our call to die to self, but he lived it ....in neon.

The Romans stripped Jesus, too. Nailed him naked to the cross.   No loincloth, as is often depicted in pictures, was present.

Nakedness.

This side of the Fall in the Garden of Eden the word invokes an uncomfortableness within the soul, does it not?
A longing within for a covering.

But prior to the Fall in the Garden of Eden, it was a depiction of transparency, symbolic of nothing hidden.

In light of this, I pause, and I give thanks.  Thank you, Lord, that though man meant for Your nakedness to be a point of humiliation, it is Your voice that resounds within me: "Dearest daughter, I have nothing to hide.  It's for you.  I lay all of Me down quietly...willingly... for you."   No greater love is there than that.

I wonder, as Bonhoeffer knelt to pray, naked before the gallows, was it a moment to return such thoughts to the Creator, to the Beloved?  "Dearest Lord, I have nothing to hide. It's for You.  I lay all of me down quietly... willingly... for You."    Discipleship, perhaps at its highest.

Certainly, its reflection begs us to feel its weight.

I have posted below the song "Completely," by Among the Thirsty.   I charge you to find a quiet intimate place and listen to it before the Creator, the Beloved.

May the goal of each of us be: "I have nothing to hide. It's for You. I lay all of me down quietly.... willingly... for You."

A submissive death.......because He is more than enough.