"Still Dead" My Life through a Five-Year-Old's Eyes

 

“It’s dead. Spider mites, the landscaper said. We’ll have to rip it out and start over.” 

As my neighbor described her horticultural woes, five-year-old Caroline listened in. 

“What’s dead, Gigi?” 

“That cute little Christmas-tree-looking bush over there,” I said, pointing to the shrub. 

“Mrs. Esther says it’s dead, and they’re going to have to pull it up.” 

Although still shaped like a holiday tree, the plant’s foliage had turned ash gray and brittle. Caroline eyed the plant thoughtfully, glancing between the obviously dead bush and a nearby flowering camellia. Her face, scrunched in thought, suddenly brightened. She lifted a finger. 

“I have an idea,” she declared. “We can decorate it!” 

She scurried to the camellia bush dripping with ruby red blossoms and filled her arms. Before long, she’d adorned the sad dead bush with spring beauty. 

She stood back to admire her work, tilted her head one way, then the other, and squinted in the sunlight. With the unfiltered honesty that characterizes the very young, she announced, 

“It looks better. . . but it’s still dead.” 

Caroline’s bush reminded me of myself many years ago. 

I was so dead. No spiritual life flowed through my soul.

For years I tried to disguise the obvious by adorning myself with the outward trappings of religion. I attended church. I said the right things. I even prayed—occasionally—when I felt desperate. Like the Pharisees who Jesus called “whitewashed tombs,” I looked okay on the outside (if you didn’t look to closely), but inside my soul was deader than dead. 

Fear haunted my days and tormented my nights. Laziness, selfishness, and independence charted the course of my life. I disrespected my parents and chose friends over family every time. Decisions overwhelmed me because I had no wise foundation on which to base my choices. 

I’ve never met the apostle Paul, but he described my condition perfectly in Ephesians 2:1-3: 

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. 

“You followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. . . . gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.” 

God would have been perfectly justified, like my neighbor planned to do with her bush, to pluck me up and incinerate me. Instead He looked on me with eyes of love, saw through my pitiful attempts to disguise my spiritual condition, and redeemed me. 

He didn’t just clean me up on the outside. He transformed me on the inside. He breathed life into my deader-than-dead spirit, removed my heart of stone, and gave me a heart that pulsed with spiritual life. 

Ephesians 2:4-5 describes salvation this way: 

“Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” 

And then, if a new birth isn’t enough, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (v. 6-7). 

Great love. Incomparable grace. Kindness. This is what God extends toward us if we’ll do two things: 

1. Acknowledge that we are dead in our sins. 

2. Cry out to Him in confession and repentance. 

Don’t you want to do this? Don’t you want to live a life that is vibrant and full, trusting in what Jesus has already done to secure your place in heaven rather than vainly attempting to earn your way into God’s favor? 

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast,” Ephesians 2:8-9 declares. 

If you’re not sure you’ll spend eternity with God in heaven when you die; if you cannot gain victory over the behaviors and mindsets that threaten to destroy you; if you want peace, and joy, and purpose, say yes to Jesus. Allow Him to raise you from the dead. 

My prayer that day long ago went something like this: 

God, I’ve been living my life my way, and I’ve made a mess of it. I confess my sins to you. I believe Jesus died for my sins and took my punishment on the cross. Please forgive me and change me. In Jesus’ name I ask, Amen. 

Will God hear you if you pray a similar prayer? Absolutely. Listen to what He says in the Bible:

“If we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 

If you prayed this prayer, or one like it, God says this to you: 

“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). 

Theologian and author C. S. Lewis said, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.” 

And so two questions remain: Are you spiritually alive or dead? and What are you going to do about it? 

I pray you choose life. 

Now it’s your turn. Have you trusted in Christ to give you eternal life? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts. 

Do you know someone who needs this message? Why not share it with them or post it on social media? 

That's in the Bible? I've never noticed that before!

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Refresh Your Faith contains 66 culturally relevant, story-driven devotions, one from each book of the Bible. Each real-life story spotlights an unusual verse or Bible passage that you may have overlooked in your usual Bible reading. Lori Hatcher challenges you with additional features like an uncommon thought to ponder; an unusual faith action step; and an unfamiliar passage suggestion for additional Bible reading.

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