(written last week) As I write this, it’s 2am and I am in a bus headed home from a ski trip. For the past four days I’ve been speaking to a bunch of high schoolers about celebrating Christmas by remembering Jesus’ life, death and.resurrection.

So, while everyone else is asleep I’m wide awake. I’m thinking about several key issues that seem to be an extra burden on me these days. These are areas where I’m having trouble having hope in our ministry right now. They are different for everyone. It could be a conflict with another staff member, a student that isn’t growing in the way you’d like, or a program that didn’t take off the way you thought. These are the mini-deaths we experience in ministry.

Jesus enters into our deaths and overcomes them. The resurrection of Christ points us to that crazy notion that life can exist where death is present. God is in the business of turning death into life. If I really believe in resurrection, then I must choose to believe that God is bringing life into places where I see only death.

So tonight I’m proclaiming life into my ministry. I’m choosing to see the life that God will bring through His presence, wisdom and grace. I’m choosing to see what could be instead of what is. Not in a wishful thinking kind of way. It’s also not a prosperity gospel belief that if I only muster enough faith, God will bless me. No, this belief in life-from-death is rooted in Jesus Himself. Because Jesus is alive, I must see the world through the lens of resurrection. Resurrection allows me to see that life is bursting all over the place.

Where are you experiencing death in your ministry or life? Will you join me and do the crazy thing by believing that Jesus’ resurrection life will break forth in the midst of death?