2:20

Several months ago I was having a difficult time waking up at 4:15 AM to go to the gym.  So, I had the brilliant (but not original) idea of setting a second alarm.  I set the alarm on my watch for 4:20, only to discover that this piece-of-junk watch lacked one very significant item: An Alarm off switch.  Oh, you can make it stop chirping, but I have yet to find (and I have looked extensively) a way to disable the alarm.

Since I was aware of this crazy situation when I went to Tanzania in June-July this year, I decided to change the time of day it would go off, so as not to wake my roommate while on the trip.  I chose 2:20pm.  Why, you may ask? Because I figured that time of day wouldn’t be a distraction to anyone.  I was more or less right.

While there, a 17 year old guy on the team from Belgium heard it early in the trip.  It seemed that he and I heard it and laughed about it everyday.  Since returning home I have begun to notice that 2:20 is a very interesting time of day.  It seems as though I have yet to do the same thing at 2:20 any day of the 14 days since I returned home.

THEN…I had a crazy idea:

I wonder if I journalized my daily 2:20 experiences if there would be a message or any spiritual significance?  I wonder if it could be a book?  After all, John Eldridge wrote a book from his daily spiritual journal, and I know several people who loved it.  Needless to say, I have spent way too much time thinking about this.  Now I have decided to do something about it. 

My first stop was to see if there were any significant 2:20’s in God’s Word.  I pulled out my Bible Study software and found several interesting “2:20” scriptures.  Then I remembered the most profound one of all Galatians 2:20:

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”.—Galatians 2:20

Most people who write or preach on this verse seem to have the emphasis a little backward for me.  Their emphasis is on being crucified or being crucified with Christ, and I intend in no way to belittle that.  I just have found that living that out is easier as a fruit of the rest of the passage rather than as a work.  Let me explain.

I come at it from a realization that He loves me at a level that I can’t even begin to comprehend.  The fact that God loved us so much that He laid Himself on the line in bodily form as Jesus, is so humbling that I want to live life like He did; He lived in love, He was and is love, and I chose to live in and by that love.  Then and only then can I lay aside the cares of this life and live by the faith of the Son of God. 

I have often gotten hung up on the statement “Faith works by love”; but if I am to live my life by THE faith of The Son of God, then I “live loved”.  Far too often we fail to allow ourselves to experience life the way God designed it for us, because we fail to embrace His love. 

Most who focus on the “being crucified in Christ” seem as though they missed the “nevertheless I live part”.  Shoot!  I think they are so crucified that they ARE dead, but Jesus came to give us life!  In fact, He came to give us life more abundantly.  That is found in resting in His love.  For me, the approach of “living loved” puts me in a place where my “flesh” is out of the way -- or crucified by His love.  There is another point:  Since He IS love, that love is the greater power, and flesh simply cannot overpower a life that is totally resting in the love of The Father.

I, like many who have been in typical church situations, struggled with this for years.  It’s easier to live life crucified sometimes than it is to live life loved, but when we do the fruit is life crucified and living!