Life to Me Is Christ

When every path disappears into the One we seek

“Life to me is Christ.”

— Philippians 1:21

There comes a point in the spiritual life when the question is no longer:

Where will this road take me?

The question becomes simpler.

Whom do I seek?

There are seasons when God permits us to think about paths, places, vocations, works, communities, beginnings and endings. These things matter. They are the substance through which obedience is lived.

But they are not life.

Christ is life.

Saint Paul does not say that Christ gives meaning to his life, though He does. He does not say merely that Christ is the most important part of his life.

He says something far more absolute:

Life to me is Christ.

Everything has disappeared into this.

The desert fathers understood.

A man went into the desert not because the desert was holy in itself. He went because there was nothing there to distract him from the terrible simplicity of God.

He entered the cell.

He became silent.

He relinquished possessions.

He relinquished reputation.

He relinquished the need to be understood.

Eventually, if grace carried the work deeply enough, he relinquished even the image he had constructed of himself.

What remained?

Christ.

This is why the elders continually return us to simplicity.

Do not search for extraordinary things.

Do not demand to know the future.

Do not measure your life by what has been accomplished.

Do not spend yourself trying to secure what cannot be secured.

Stand before God.

Call upon His Name.

Remain.

Everything else passes.

There is a strange freedom when this begins to become real.

One can lose a place and still have Christ.

One can lose a role and still have Christ.

One can lose the understanding of others and still have Christ.

One can watch plans collapse and still have Christ.

One can find oneself walking by another way and discover that Christ was never confined to the road one expected to travel.

Perhaps this is why Paul can speak of life and death with such astonishing freedom.

He is not indifferent to life.

Nor is he weary of it.

He has simply discovered something stronger than death.

Christ is on both sides.

If he lives, Christ.

If he dies, Christ.

If he remains, Christ.

If he departs, Christ.

There is nowhere left for fear to establish its kingdom.

The modern elders speak with the same simplicity. The soul becomes free when it ceases trying to arrange the conditions under which it will belong to God.

We imagine:

If this is resolved, I will have peace.

If I know where I belong, I will have peace.

If the future becomes clear, I will have peace.

If what has been lost is restored, I will have peace.

But peace does not wait at the end of these sentences.

Christ does not stand at the end of circumstances finally arranged to our satisfaction.

He stands here.

Now.

And says:

Remain in Me.

This changes everything.

There have been times when I thought fidelity meant knowing where the road was going.

I no longer believe this.

Fidelity may mean taking one step when the rest of the road is hidden.

It may mean allowing an old road to end without bitterness.

It may mean discovering another way opening before us without pretending that we understand why.

It may mean remaining where we would rather leave.

It may mean leaving what we once thought we would never leave.

But underneath all these movements there must be something that does not move.

Christ.

Otherwise we merely exchange one attachment for another.

This is the danger even in spiritual seeking. We can become attached to the path by which we seek God and mistake the path for God Himself.

The desert strips this illusion from us.

Eventually the soul must be willing to lose even its preferred way of finding Christ in order to receive Christ Himself.

Perhaps this is one meaning of poverty of spirit.

Nothing is possessed.

Nothing is demanded.

Nothing is made into a condition for loving God.

Not even tomorrow.

And so Paul’s words have become increasingly precious to me:

Life to me is Christ.

Not certainty.

Not usefulness.

Not recognition.

Not a particular work.

Not an institution.

Not the preservation of what has been.

Not even the fulfillment of what I imagine should be.

Christ.

Only Christ.

This does not make our responsibilities disappear. Paul immediately turns toward those who still need him. Love keeps him in the world. His desire is to depart and be with Christ, but charity tells him that remaining may still be necessary.

This too is deeply ascetical.

Sometimes we imagine surrender means leaving.

Often surrender means staying.

Remaining beside the person entrusted to us.

Doing the small work given today.

Accepting interruption.

Carrying weakness.

Praying when nothing is felt.

Loving without being seen.

Letting another person’s need determine the shape of the day.

The cell is not always made of stone.

Sometimes it is a room in a house.

Sometimes the bell calling us to prayer is another person’s need.

Sometimes obedience is simply being where love requires us to be.

And Christ is there.

This is enough.

Perhaps the deepest freedom is not finally discovering where our life is going.

It is discovering what our life is.

Christ.

Then even the words another way lose some of their importance.

There is only one journey beneath all the others.

Into Christ.

Through repentance.

Through suffering.

Through love.

Through silence.

Through death.

Into Christ.

The roads change.

The landscape disappears.

Names and roles fall away.

What once seemed permanent reveals itself as temporary.

And gradually the soul learns not to grasp after any of it.

It learns one prayer.

One desire.

One life.

Christ.

If I remain, let me remain in Him.

If I am asked to go, let me go with Him.

If I am understood, let me belong to Him.

If I am misunderstood, let me belong to Him.

If there is work still to be done, let it be His.

If silence is what remains, let the silence be filled with His Name.

Nothing else need be secured.

Nothing else need survive.

Life to me is Christ.

And perhaps, after all our wandering, this is the only destination there ever was.