Bondslave

"I, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you..." (Ephesians 4:1a).

To be the prisoner of the Lord means that we accept the sentence of death and are resigned to our fate. We are not the Lord's prisoner if we are still protesting our innocence. If we do not agree with the Lord that Self is worthy of death then we unnecessarily delay the inevitable. If we must take up the Cross and be crucified, it is better to submit ourselves to it as Christ did, giving up our spirit into the Father's hands, and bowing our head in peace. So let us drink the Cup that the Father gives us. If we struggle and protest, like the two thieves, then we only prolong our agony, and the soldiers must come and break our legs. Either way, the Cross means death. The sooner we surrender to it the sooner we find Resurrection.

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, 1945
During the last year or so, I have come to appreciate the "worldliness" of Christianity as never before. The Christian is not a homo religiosus but a man, pure and simple, just as Jesus became man... It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to believe. One must abandon every attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, a converted sinner, a churchman, a righteous man, or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one... This is what I mean by worldliness -- taking life in one's stride, with all its duties and problems, its successes and failures, its experiences and helplessness... How can success make us arrogant or failure lead us astray, when we participate in the sufferings of God by living in this world?