Walking Dead

‘Everybody wants to go to heaven, but none of them wants to die’.

For some, the macabre topic of death has become one that is discussed only at funeral services. It is talked about very briefly and in hushed tones. Death is one of the facts of life. In fact, living in a denial of death is the riskiest possible way to live.

The Syrians laid a seige against Samaria in 2 Kings 7. The seige induced a famine within the city. So severe that mothers boiled their babies to eat. Now, there were 4 lepers who were outside the city gates but quite far from the enemy’s camp. In those days, lepers were ostracized because they were ceremonially unclean and could contaminate anything they touched. So, these men had nowhere to go. If they returned to the city, they’d be stoned. Even if they were not stoned, they’d still starve to death. And if they had gone into the enemy’s camp, they could be slaughtered. Like chickens.

With time, these men became unsatisfied with the status quo. They were tired with life caught in the middle on no-man’s land. Besides, they were starving. They knew that there was nothing within the city. But what if the solution existed in the enemy’s camp? The way to know for sure was to find out. Even if it meant losing their lives. That was the point they became ‘Walking Dead’ men!

As discovered later, the attitude of the lepers paid off! They were the first to witness the miracle that God had wrought. This miracle consequently abolished famine within the very city they were ostracized from.

It started when the lepers became dead to themselves. They simply couldn’t die anymore, as they were already dead to fear that had initially imprisoned them.

We all should embrace this attitude in unpalatable situations. When we are comfronted with a need to change our circumstances. Note that unless we say like Esther, ‘…if I perish, I perish’ and brace up to face our situations head long, our circumstances would stubbornly not change.

‘Self-help is no help at all, self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self’