The Lazarus Experiment Day 21

Your worst day with Jesus is better than your best day without him, and your worst day alive is better than your best day dead.

Lazarus gained a working heart, a functioning brain, and five or more senses that worked when Jesus re-issued his permission to live. But he also gained one amazing view - the panoramic vista of abundant life.

Do you have a picture in your mind of a scene that changed your life completely?

I have several burned into my memory. The first time I saw the Grand Canyon as an adult. Looking out from the Capital Building in Washington D.C. at the space between there and the Washington Monument filled with hundreds of thousands of men. Holding my daughter, April, in my hands on the day she was born. The breathtaking sight of my wife, Linda, coming around the corner of the doorway on the arm of her father on our wedding day. Holding my grandson and looking into his big eyes for the first time. To say these moments were life-changing reduces them to a cliche. They leveled me, and I have never recuperated.

They also have framed my life and my perspective. Every moment of my life are cast with the color of these scenes, like lights on a stage play.

Now, translate all that to Lazarus and the bandages removed, the eyes open. He would never forget. And everything else is sawdust.

We here at TLE 2014 have already seen this perspective alive and active in the hearts of our participants. Some are looking at renewed and enlivened vision. Some are experiencing painful memories. Some, questioning and wondering. And there are others, some whose stuff we know, and many whose stuff we will never know, but they're hanging on to this central truth - I have today, and I have Jesus, and that is enough.

THAT IS ENOUGH.

Last year, in the midst of great pain and loss, Debora used these words: "living in the now." Now can be brutal.

But you have Grand Canyon eyes. You have new baby eyes. You have wedding bliss eyes.
YOU HAVE LAZARUS EYES.

The rest? Sawdust.

Suggested Scripture For Today: Psalm 116

Suggested Ideas:
1. When the ebb and flow of your day brings you to the lowest point, stop and be Lazarus in that moment. Don't try to bail. Live it out. Tell us about it.
2. Share some of your life-changing moments with someone who's never heard them before.
3. Write a thank-you note to Jesus for the life-altering Lazarus perspective.
4. Dance with someone you love. Or a stranger.
Do something outrageously loving!
Ron