"Lady Lazarus"

There is a distinct smell that is festering outside the gate of my apartment building. When you stand near the gate, you can’t help but notice it. Many people walk by that gate multiple times a day. Yet, I wonder who can detect the smell. I have a sensitive sense of smell, and because of this; I often detect things others don’t. (Usually chemicals, which is not fun, cause then I have to put my scientist cap on and start zipping through the table of elements! lol)

Anyway, this smell has only shown up over the last couple of days, and it is still ever so subtle. This morning as I stood by the gate a little longer than usual, it hit me. As I surveyed the area I realized, due to the recent rain we’ve had, there was a pool of stagnant water that had formed near a big rock. It’s such a tiny little pool of water, yet the smell it’s emitting is enough to cause you pause.

As I walked into the gate toward my door, a thought hit me harder than that smell. That’s what it’s like when I become stagnant in my faith. To put it bluntly, in the words of Martha, the sister of Lazarus, “He stinketh.” [John 11:39 KJV] Two little words that she used to describe her brother, who at that time had been dead four days.

The body decomposes differently depending on the environment. The colder it is, the slower the process, it’s most likely that the bugs found on the body would indicate how long it’s been deceased. The cells in the human body die immediately after death, with the exception of a few, including fingernails and hair. How weird is it that the decedents hair still grows after death! Crazy!

Anyway, because his body would have already started to decompose, he obviously had to stink. I can’t even imagine, what that would be like! I know the smell, but to see it, would be crazy! However, regardless of his stench, the Lord who loved and wept over his friend when he passed, knew that it wasn’t time for Lazarus to really die, and He called him forth, back to life.

This morning’s stench was the Lord calling me back to life, out of the stagnant death rags I have been bound in.        

It seems like for weeks now, the sense of desperation for Jesus in my life has been muddled by my busyness of finals, and my dad. Rather than all the responsibility of my life leading me to the Lord I’ve allowed those things to pull me away. When I am bogged down with life, its always easier for the enemy to distract me from Eternity.

I’ve been meditating on Job lately and how the Lord responds to Job’s anguish and questioning. I keep coming back to the thought that only God can hold the Pleiades (my favorite star) in His hand. [Job 38:31] Isaiah tells us, “Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing.” - Isaiah 40:26(NLT). And why do I allow myself to be strayed from being in constant awe of such a KING!?

My pastor spoke through 1 John a while back, and talked about how priorities, fight to be the center of our lives, and attention. I think I’ve been busy setting my priorities in the wrong place and letting Jesus be an extra in my life, rather than being the star. I have been having these depressing and rather emotional thoughts in my head lately, and I realize that it’s only because I’ve been apart from my best friend.

The smell outside my gate is a smell of wet pavement, mixed with animal urine, manure, and mold. This smell is the kind of smell that curls your nostrils. Yet, it’s not yet matured to the curdling milk state, so I’m sure only few can detect it. This is often the effect sin has in my life. Scripture says that a little leaven, leavens the whole lump. [Galatians 5:9] As days go by, I allow myself to avoid the Lord once, then once becomes twice, then twice becomes a week, then a week becomes a month, and on and on. And as I stray from my Savior, I stray from the narrow road He’s called me to walk. As the time passes, I am standing still, festering with urine and manure running up my legs, and my heart begins to decompose. I grow faint, and begin to stink.      

It is a stagnant faith I have been wallowing in. Festering up in ugly ways, stinking up the joint. He’s called us out of darkness, into marvelous light. And yet, here I am dragging my bag of bones into the depths of what Beth Moore would call, “a pit.” In my busyness, I start to feel at home in the mire and muck, and long before I recognize it, what stinks to me is no longer the smell of stagnancy but rather, the smell of life.

My Savior, has bid me to come forth, like He did to Lazarus. Thus to quote a title of my favorite poet, Sylvia Plath, I am “Lady Lazarus.”

I don’t want to be stagnant. I want to thrive. It’s time Jesus, (my Best Friend, my Father, my Hero, my Savior, my Redeemer) and I had a cup o’joe and talked through this death. Cause it wouldn’t hold Lazarus down, and it COULDN'T hold my Jesus down, and I refuse to stink any longer, and allow death to hold me down.

Come, walk with me… Let’s be a pleasing aroma to our King. Drop whatever your doing, let it go, surrender. It can be better. I promise. It can.

Away we go….

Listening to “Oh How You Love Me” by Rita Springer

(If you’ve never heard it, please do.)