Crash and Burn!

Crash and burn! Crash and burn is just what recently happened to my computer. Fortunately the Apple Store was able fix the problem. Unfortunately I lost almost all my data and several key apps in the process. Basically I started over with a brand new computer.

Yet is that such a bad thing to occur? Certainly on some levels it was a travesty. However there is something profoundly theological about this situation. We all tend to fill our lives with a lifetime of junk. By rebooting my computer I was able to begin with a fresh start. So it is with our spiritual lives. All too often we fill our souls with various kinds of unnecessary junk. Our prayer life suffers, as we become spiritually slow and constipated. We continue to refer back to the same old way doing things, whether they work or not. Sometimes it takes a spiritual crash to reboot our relationship with Christ and others. Call it getting back to the basics! We are creatures who tend to hang on to the past fragments and every single application we have ever downloaded.

In many ways I believe this is what Jesus means when he says, “If you want to save your life, first you must lose it.” We have to let go of the old ideas and ideals in order to clear a way for new and engaging ones. Clearing away the wreckage and debris of the past is a necessary part of spiritual growth and development. It opens new channels of prayer and spiritual insights that we perhaps overlooked. We find ourselves restored to a healthy and uncluttered relationship with Christ, as well as one another.

Had I been wise I might have backed up all of my computer information. But since I didn’t, I get to start over uninhibited and much freer. When we spiritually clean house we do the same. Our lives are less burdensome and we have so much more space for God in our lives. As frightening as it is, there are times when we must simply allow ourselves to crash and burn in order to be restored to a truly Christ-centered life. In other words, “We must lose our lives in order to save them.