Living as life-bringers

Our goal during Life Season

January 1 - February 13, 2024

Become more authentically alive and more grateful to be alive; letting life spill over from our lives to others.

To SYNC with the rhythm of life and creation means that we dance to that "Life Rhythm," gratefully and joyfully playing our role in God's world. We focus on God's life and his campaign to spread it.

The Death Rhythm

But there is a different rhythm in all our heads, the rhythm of death, and it sneakily tries to get us to dance to it. It tries to camouflage itself as life because it knows we all want to dance to the Life Rhythm.

For example, it tries to convince us that the way to promote life is to focus on acquiring and protecting as much of the good life for ourselves and our loved ones as we can.

If we fall for this lie, we start acting like there is not enough life to go around. We have to grab for it. When we grab, we start spreading death. Fights break out. We excuse ourselves by saying we did not mean to hurt anyone, but the hurt was the direct result of our selfish choice.

The Life Rhythm

Life Season is the time to drown out the death rhythm in our heads with the Life Rhythm that God has put into the universe and the Bible.

We become more alive as we embrace the opening chapter of the Bible, realizing we are in a good world created by a good God and we have a good part to play in the life of the world.

Praying for more life for more people

As we realize that God is the Source of life and that we are part of his strategy to protect and promote life, we start seeing ourselves differently. We realize that we are bundles of conflicting desires, some that promote life and some that work against it, even against our own lives sometimes.

Once that hits us, we quit grabbing for all the life we can get, and we quit comparing our lives to others. We accept each day of life and each blessing of life as a gift, not a right. And we pray prayers like this:

God our Creator, we marvel at your creativity and your goodness! What a world we are in! What a universe!
Thank you so much that we get to be here at all. And thank you that we have a good role to play to bring your life to those who are under attack by the forces of death.
SYNC us with your plan to bring life, beauty, and joy to all creation. Let us know your goodness inside and overflow with your life.

God our Creator, there is so much pain and death in the world. So many people are disconnected from your life. They need healing and restoration.

They want real life but they are looking for the blessings of life in all the wrong places. Their lives are falling apart. In your mercy bring them back together and give them new life. May they flourish and be fulfilled, and may they thank you for it.

How do we move with the Life Rhythm?

Celebrate the beauty of creation and the joys of life--music, food, family, friends. Watch a nature documentary. Put down your device and look out your window. Pass out hugs. Don't become work-driven or money-driven. Don't push yourself 24/7.
Honor the gift of life and the Giver of life. Take care of your body. Protect and enrich the lives of others, since God created them all. Never be the person going against the Creator's intentions.
Honor creation. We have far more reason to honor creation than people who do not believe in a Creator. We believe in a God who owns everything because he created it, so let's "out-green" the "Greens" who don't believe that God created everything. Green (plants) and blue (water) are the colors of the SYNC icon for Life Season.

Restore people and things. We celebrate but we don't pretend nothing is wrong. There is so much work to be done to heal old wounds, bring peace to current conflicts, and help people move forward.

The secret that all life-bringers know

Of course, God did not make us his life-bringers because we were any better than anyone else to start with or because we worked hard and earned this privilege somehow. We only got the privilege because we have said "Yes" to the biggest life-bringer of all, Jesus the Messiah.

Jesus hammered one main point about life. It was his signature tune, and it is not any of these teachings:

"Live a good life,"
"Live a more religious life," or
"Here's how to make sure you have life after death."

His core message was not really a "teaching" at all. It was an official proclamation that God's connect-heal-bless campaign was moving to a whole new level. God's "kingdom" or reign was arriving in our world, beginning a gradual non-violent takeover.

When we hear that proclamation, we are supposed to drop everything else and welcome it with open arms. We let his reign begin in us.

That is what it means to be alive--welcoming what Jesus proclaimed. We call that "SYNCing" with Jesus and his campaign, seeing ourselves in Christ. If we are in Christ, the Life-bringer, we also become life-bringers.