Day 15

Midpoint Reflection — What Is Dying, What Is Rising

Today's Scripture: Romans 6:4–5 (NLT)

You are standing now at the middle of this month — fourteen days behind you, fifteen ahead. And just as in April, when we paused at the midpoint of the season of waiting, it is right to pause again here and look honestly at what is happening within. The middle is always the most revealing place in any spiritual season. The opening burst is over. The closing relief has not yet arrived. What remains is the raw, unvarnished honesty of the journey itself, and the question the middle always presses upon every honest soul is the question we must press upon ourselves today: what is actually dying — and what is actually rising — in me?

Paul gives us the framework for this question in Romans 6. He says we are buried with Christ in death so that we might walk in newness of life. He uses the language of planting — the seed goes into the ground and dies, and what rises is not the seed but the plant that the seed was always meant to become. The death and the life are inseparable. You cannot have the rising without the dying. You cannot have the new walk without the old burial. And the question of the middle is whether both are happening in you — whether the burial is real, and whether the rising is real, or whether you have settled for some halfway position that is neither one nor the other.

Sit with this question today, honestly, before God. Take the first fourteen days of this month and examine them. Has anything actually died, or have you merely been reading about death? Has the daily altar of day six become a real practice, or is it still a concept? Has the death of self-will in day seven moved from page to prayer? Has the death of the right to be right in day eight cost you anything in the actual conversations of your actual life? Has the comfort self in day nine, the reputation self in day ten, the control self in day eleven, the resentful self in day twelve, the need to be seen in day thirteen, the ambition self in day fourteen — have any of these begun to bleed in you, or are they still safely conceptual, hanging on the wall of your mind but not yet on the cross of your life?

There is no condemnation in this question, only invitation. The Lord is not looking down at this midpoint with crossed arms, measuring your performance. He is looking with the patient love of a Father who knows that the death of self is the slowest of all deaths and that He is not in a hurry. But He is also looking with the honest eye of a Physician who knows that a wound covered too quickly heals badly, and so He invites you, today, to uncover the work and look at it as it actually is.

And then ask the harder, more beautiful question: what is rising? Because if the work is real — if anything has actually died — something must also be coming alive. That is the inevitable logic of crucifixion in the believer's life. The cross is never the end of the story. The cross is the means to the resurrection that follows. And if you cannot detect any rising, then you must ask whether the dying has been real, or whether you have been performing a death without entering into it.

What does the rising look like? It looks like a softness in a place where you used to be hard. A peace in a circumstance that used to provoke panic. A response of grace in a moment that used to provoke retaliation. A quietness in a conversation where you used to insist on the last word. A willingness to wait where you used to grasp for control. A capacity to bless where you used to want to curse. A laughter in a setting where you used to be guarded. These are not large things. They are the small fingerprints of resurrection, and they appear, one by one, on the soul that is truly walking the way of the cross.

If you can see even one such fingerprint in yourself at this midpoint, give thanks. Something is rising. God is at work. The dying is not in vain. And if you cannot yet see any — do not panic. Sometimes the rising lags behind the dying by weeks or months. Sometimes the seed is in the ground longer than we expected before the green appears. The promise of Romans 6 is not that the rising will be visible on your schedule; the promise is that the rising will come. If the burial is real, the resurrection is certain. The God who buried His Son did not leave Him in the grave, and He will not leave you there either.

Stand at the middle and breathe. The first half of this month has been a labor of descent. The second half will be a labor of ascent, and the ascent is already beginning, often beneath the surface where you cannot yet see. Keep walking. The God who started this work is the God who will finish it.

Prayer

Father, at the middle of this month, I bring You an honest accounting. Show me where the dying has been real, and where it has only been talked about. Show me where the rising has begun, even in small ways I have not yet noticed. Where I have settled for the appearance of crucifixion without the substance, take me deeper. Where Your Spirit has been working, give me the eyes to see it and the courage to give thanks. Carry me through the second half of this month into the resurrection life You are forming in me. Amen.

Today's Challenge

Take thirty minutes today to write honestly before God. On one side of the page, write: "What is dying?" On the other: "What is rising?" Be honest with both columns. Bring whatever you find — whether much or little — to the Lord in prayer and let Him show you the way forward into the second half of the month.

"In the middle of every honest death, if you look closely, the first green of resurrection is already pushing through the soil."