a call to die.

"when Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die."

dietrich bonhoeffer

this bonhoeffer quote has stuck with me since the first time i heard it. it reflects an idea (or attitude) that the Bible, the very Word of God, offers through the words of the apostle Paul. "...to live is Christ, and to die is gain..." (philippians 1:21) it of course is expressing that as followers of Christ, we must die to self. a song that i love, 'lead me to the cross', has a line in the chorus that speaks to this idea of dying to self - "rid me of myself, i belong to You."

i guess this notion has been on my mind because when i browsed the hawthorne bible house bookstore a few weeks ago, my attention was immediately drawn to david nasser's 'a call to die.' (i confess, i do tend to judge book by their covers) as soon as i picked it up, i just had a sense of knowing that this was the one. i glanced over the explanation on the back cover a bit, skimmed the foreword by chris tomlin (another selling point, might i add), and knew i didn't need to look any further. sold.

'a call to die' is explained to be "a 40 day journey of fasting from the world & feasting on God." maybe i should be taking it as a literal 40 days of fasting, as in fasting from food. but i decided that food isn't really something that gets in the way of my relationship with God. so what does? what worldly thing - something that can be used for good but has become misused - is taking up my time and distracting me from God? facebook. sure, i use it as a means of communicating with long lost friends and family. i even use it to build relationships with kids from youth group - a way to talk to them and be there. but how often am i signed on, not really doing anything with with, as the minutes fly by and take time away from my life?

so for the next 40 days (the lent season) i will be away from facebook as part of my fast. from what i gather, this book challenges you to go beyond reading its chapters but really dive in and answer questions and such. i decided that i will commit to 40 days of blogging as a means of reflecting on the journey. the blog will most likely not include answers to the specific questions in the book, but my thoughts and feelings and reactions that it provokes, as appropriate.

tomorrow begins my answering the call to die.