If the Roads Lead to Graveyards

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

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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One of my best friends, we’ll call her Tessie, and I drove past a graveyard today.

We had been giggling and singing songs from her “Jesus Hype” playlist, soaking in the beautiful summer day, when a field dotted with flowers and tombstones came into view.

Usually, this sight is a common part of life and doesn’t greatly impact the mood of my day. But this time a sudden, somber sorrow settled over my heart as the bouquets blurred, brightly reminding that something meaningful had been lost. Something that wasn’t supposed to be lost…at least, not as God intended.

As my soul settled under the weight of it, I felt the awkward balance of the world where people died and the joyful day which Tessie and I were delighting in. There is broken in this beauty…and there is beauty in this broken. The balance can be hard to rightly bear, can’t it?

As the graveyard disappeared behind us, the song “Survivor” by Jeremy Camp came on. Two of the lines hit me as quite powerful in context of the graveyard:

You told me it’s Your battle, God, so I need You to fight
‘Cause if I’m gonna live then there’s some things that need to die

In that moment, I felt the Holy Spirit pressing on my heart, “Many times you have asked to walk My paths, and I am eager to lead you. But if you’re gonna live…there are things that need to die. So, if the roads lead to graveyards…will you still walk them?”

Will I still walk them?

I looked at Tessie and wondered…if the roads lead to the burial of my friendship with Tess, will I still walk them? I looked at the glorious, summer sky and wondered…if the roads lead to my eyes being permanently blinded to the beauty of the world…will I still walk them?

If the roads lead to graveyards…will I still walk them?

Death Must Die

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

– Galatians 5:24

We don’t understand death and life. Not really. Because we don’t understand God. He is too holy, and we are too weak.

We cannot begin to grasp how broken this earth is because the poison of its brokenness flows in our veins. The brokenness is in us, and we are in it. And because we cannot understand how broken it all is, we cannot grasp how important death is for life to abound. The brokenness must die for His beauty to flourish.

But if we are a part of the brokenness that means we also must die for His life to abound in us.

We must die to death so that we may live in life.

Of course, the only perfect, spotless, holy death was that of Jesus Christ, who satisfied the debt of sin. He alone fulfilled that very sacred death required for abundant and eternal life. But we still must choose that life. And because we are part brokenness and sin and death, our choice to live in Life alone also means we must die to the death within us.

So, it is certain: there must be death.

Paul wrote of this to the Romans, explaining why sin must be crucified. “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

We can be sure…the roads will lead to graveyards.

So we must ask ourselves now: if the roads lead to graveyards…will we still follow?

Different Deaths We Must Die, One Life We Must Live

[It] is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

– Philippians 1:20-21

The fact that God wills for us to live not only physically but spiritually is amazing to me. And, though we often separate the two, they are entirely intertwined according to His holy ordinances.

As I ponder the balance of physical and spiritual, I must admit that I think our physical death must be the least painful of them all. Obviously, I haven’t physically died myself just yet, but the physical deaths we experience in this life do not have much eternal power…quite unlike the spiritual deaths we face.

Spiritual deaths are not merely hard, but excruciating and impossible to bear on our own.

Furthermore, Spiritual deaths require courage. Because, unlike physical deaths, spiritual deaths require a personal sacrifice, a choice, …a faith. A faith in something worth the surrender. A faith in a Gardener who will faithfully turn our graveyards into fields of glory that testify of His faithfulness.

Indeed, there are many deaths we must bear in this world. We must die to this lifetime in our physical death. We must die to self in surrender to Christ – or otherwise die to true Life in surrender to self. And we must die again and again and again, for we do not only struggle living well, but we also struggle to die well.

Despite these many deaths we must bear, we are called to only one life and that is Christ. He is the courage which upholds the hope within our souls. He is the anthem of our wearied hearts and the healing that binds our spirits through the many deaths we bear.

Christ is the gardener of the graveyards in our souls. And His is the Life we are called to live.

And if the roads lead to graveyards…His is the Life we cherish still.

Where Death is Buried, Life Abounds

My favorite part of writing this article is that every time I think back to the graveyard, my memory is filled with the vibrant array of flowers dotting every tombstone.

Humans argue about a lot, but one thing most of us agree on is the beauty of flowers. We decorate with them, we honor people with them, we form habits caring for them. We find them worth valuing. And, in the case of graveyards, we appreciate them as a way of expressing the beauty of continued love, meaningful memories, and difficult losses.

Just like we honor the memory of certain loved ones through bouquets of beautiful flowers, God also honors our death to self with the abundance of His life in us. While preparing them for His death, Jesus told His disciples, “Truly, truly, […] unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).

Our lives in Christ are full of twisted roads that lead to graveyards. These graveyards bury our sin, shame, brokenness…they bury the very death inside of us. And some graves are still empty. Some of them we are still gathering the courage to walk to and fill.

But upon this graveyard, a garden blooms.

Because He delights to grow beautiful things within our souls. His only requirement is that we walk the roads which lead to graveyards…for above the graveyards gardens grow.

And so, He reaches out, with a Kingly sovereignty and a Fatherly heart, waiting, asking: will you follow the roads? Will you go where no one dares to go? You asked for My lamp to guide your feet…and I faithfully will.

But if the roads lead to graveyards…will you still walk them?

As for me, I think the roads are worth walking. Because the world totters on graveyards anyway…it’s our choice what we bury there.

And only those who choose to die…will live.