More Than Reasonably Priced Leeks

There is an old phrase that says, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” This is quite true and you can flip it around for a related truth, “Everybody wants to escape hell, but nobody wants to live.” Now, you might be inclined to think that everybody wants to live. But, don’t forget that the abundant life is more than a little adventurous. You may be thrown into a fiery furnace. You might have to fake insanity before your enemy, spit running down the beard and all. Or, if you’re one of the lucky ones, you might wake up as a fish vomits you out onto a beach where you have to fulfill the same difficult orders you recently chose to disobey. Resurrection is a messy business.

So everybody wants to be set free but very few want to live free. Everybody wants to be forgiven, but only a remnant wants to live forgiven. The life of a freeman is terrifying. Men who live under tyranny are fed their leeks and onions. Men who live free storm the gates of hell.  

These things are true regardless of our recent elections. But they do have a specific application to our new civil circumstances. Here are two:

First, thank God for sparing us from getting heavier doses of the civil tyranny that we deserved. Gratitude to God really is in order and that gratitude is not a sign that you are putting your trust in man. Ingratitude, however, may be such a sign.

Second, remember God’s deliverances always have a what for, and His what for is always bigger and more glorious than reasonably priced leeks and onions in the absence of our enemies. Our Father’s method is much more like unreasonably sized fruit in the presence of unreasonably sized adversaries. So the exhortation is to live as free men: Out of Pharaoh’s Egypt to cleanse the land of giants. Out of Babylonian captivity to rebuild the temple and the city of our God.

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