Ah, ah, ah, ah, Stayin’ Alive – Feelin’ Alive
Have you heard people say how some activity or person or experience “made me feel alive”? Have you also noticed that those things are very illusive for some?
As I have been sifting through some thoughts, scriptures, and life experiences, I am pondering the following “conclusions”:
Before Adam sinned, I believe he and Eve knew – better than we – what it meant to “feel alive”. Though it is speculation on my part, I believe it is “educated speculation”, that they knew God’s love and closeness; they enjoyed and were grateful to God for life, food, meaningful work, beauty, animals, sunrise, sunsets, etc. I think those things and more, all experienced within the atmosphere of God’s love for them, made them feel alive.
Fast forward to today and our present condition to observe that much of what makes folks “feel alive” or “feel alive again” is somehow sin related. Feeling alive has come to be associated with fun, thrill, or pleasure.
My thoughts are that many more activities and relationships would be (and were before the fall) fun, thrilling, and enjoyable if we felt more as Jesus feels, thought as He thinks, and loved as He loves. The Savior whose joy was so great that He could give us all joy that our “joy may be full”, whose love was so life-giving that His love is the hallmark of our discipleship, and whose hope, comfort, peace, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and self-control bring such satisfaction to the soul that “feeling alive” can be a consistent – if not constant – state of being for the Christ-follower.
Simply put – “knowing true love from God, for Him, and sharing that love with others – family and beyond – bring us to life to feel what “feeling alive” is supposed to be. Another way to state it is “the abundant life” Jesus promised brings us to life and keeps us alive with purpose and hope for even better days.
That life zeal – though harder to come by- is thrilling in more ways than the fix Satan offers with his cheap substitutes that feel life-giving but only “give pleasure for a season ” and result in the death, theft, and destruction of abundant life and relationships.
I’m Just sayin’
Dave
