Themes: New life, our choices and God’s authority, and hope.
As I share my reflections, I again am grateful to those who choose to read with an open heart in receiving God’s goodness and grace through his word and parts of my testimony.
Romans 6
I’m just going to go straight into it. Romans 6:4 talks about how just as Jesus died, we must also die so that we can have new life. What a confusing concept! Until that day comes that you go through it, it may be conflicting and not make any sense, as it was for me. I’m going to go deeper and share that the moment I started dying in order to begin the new life God had for me, was when my younger brother Ruben passed away in 2020 of alcohol poisoning. My eyes began slowly opening to the light as my life started falling apart in every area, including my family of origin, my marriage, my friendships, my job, and then my identity, and it all started with my brother. My eyes had been closed and in the dark. Once I started to see the light, because I was in the dark for so long, it hurt and was hard to open my eyes. The moment of revelation when I realized I was dying was seeing my brother's lifeless body, ice-cold and wrapped in cloth. Tears rolling down my face and my heart broken, there was the truth. BAM! The reality of death. It smacked me right in my face and took my whole body, like a wave crashing down on me. Swoosh! I was gasping for air. There was no way to avoid it. How do you deny that there is a wave when you are being thrown by it right and left? The truth: there is death, and there is life. There is heaven, and there is hell. There is a devil, and there is God. I was faced with the reality that if I wanted to live, I had to die first. This was a choice that I was making regardless of my ownership of it or not. I was in shock. God is the ultimate authority and I don’t have any more time to play around. That is when I started to really open the door to God’s authority in my life. In the previous week, I talked a lot about my ego, and the human ego. This is an ego-death I endured in order to start living a new life. The process of my death is an ongoing process so that I can live in peace and in the spirit. Romans 10:9 speaks to the authority of God over our lives and gives us a way back to him. If we confess with our mouth, and believe in our hearts, then we will be saved. I am so grateful that God never gives up on me and he provided a way for me to die, so that I can live a new life with, and for, him.
Romans 6:16 points out the choices that we make. We, too, often live our lives being ignorant and blind to the choices that have been placed in our hands. When God put Adam on this earth, he immediately gave him a job. He gave him authority and dominion over the animals, the plants, and this world. We have the responsibility of choice, as God has given us autonomy to choose. That is the only way a healthy relationship develops: by choice. This goes back to the law of sowing and reaping, where whatever choices we make have positive and negative consequences. When we choose to worship our earthly desires, we are also choosing to be slaves of it.
Romans 7
Romans 7:4 explains how we are not bound to the law because it is dead, but we can now be married to Jesus and bear fruit in the Spirit from that loving relationship.
Romans 7: 13-24, wow, what a back-and-forth roller coaster. Paul is expressing his weakness in the flesh, the desire to do different, and the reality that to follow the law and be holy and righteous is a matter of spiritual battles. We do not fight flesh and blood, but principalities of the dark. He talks about sin being in our flesh and how in our flesh, we can find no right way. We are hypocrites as we say we want to do good, but the flesh takes over and leads us to engage in sin. To end this chapter, Paul laments on his lowliness and describes how our flesh and our minds will be divided because of sin. You can laugh a bit at his lament, but the reality is we have all been there. I definitely have been there crying out to God, asking him to save me from myself. Asking God to save me from my anger, fear, anxiety, pride, hypocrisy, and the imperfect nature of me. As these emotions and experiences are stored in my body, these struggles are stored in my flesh. I think Paul is saying that as long as we are in the flesh on this earth, we will always sin. This takes humility and strength to be able to live in that place of accepting our limitations due to sin and our human form, while striving to live in God’s grace and peace at the same time. This is truly a battle.
Romans 8
Romans 8:1 comes right out giving hope immediately. Thank God! In the previous verses we can say, well dang, if I am controlled by my flesh and if I can’t do what my mind wants me to do, then what? Well, here we go. When the flesh takes over, we have hope and strength to walk in the Spirit! We have the option to live in peace though the Spirit that is already inside of us. Look at that, God already gave us what we needed for the journey. Now as far as how to do that specifically, quite frankly, that is still something I am searching for. I love how in Romans 8, Paul talks specifically about the Spirit. I grew up in the church but was not taught about the Spirit of God. God speaks to me through books and learning, and it wasn’t until I read a book 2 years ago called The Holy Spirit by John Bevere that it started to help me understand more about who God is and who He isn’t.
Romans 8:13 makes me think about how we need to die to our flesh and body in order to live by the Spirit. This makes me think about how our bodies adapt to our human experience due to survival, and our flesh can take over. As a mental health therapist, I specialize in trauma. Our body’s job is to protect us, and we develop maladaptive (unhealthy and/or harmful) coping skills throughout development to try to maintain that protection. When our body’s sympathetic nervous system (the part of our body that reacts for survival and prepares for physical activity) is reacting constantly, our mind becomes hijacked due to trauma. This affects our body and brains in every way. When we experience trauma or an intense emotional injury that results in lasting negative effects, our brain becomes hyper-vigilant and focused on survival, constantly scanning and avoiding those triggers that remind us of our trauma. This creates an overcompensation of our minds identifying most things as unsafe, even if it is safe. It’s similar to a smoke alarm that beeps at any tiny hint of smoke, heat, or steam. If your smoke alarm in your house is constantly going off, it becomes hard to live in that house. I myself experience unhealthy attachment and an overactive sympathetic nervous system that results in high anxiety. To live in this state of survival is to be taken over by our minds and bodies trying to find safety in the here and now of what we see in front of us. In my experience, part of dying to myself is to give up what I think is safe, and to rely on Christ. To live in the spirit is to release those cycles and rely on the voice of God over what our flesh is telling us. I want to be sensitive to this topic also, because it is intensely difficult to challenge these reactions the body and brain has, and I also don’t want to diminish, dismiss, or invalidate anyone’s experience with trauma. This is what I share related to my own experiences. I am far from where I want to be on surrendering my flesh and trusting on God. When the train of anxiety comes at full speed, it’s pretty difficult to stop.
Romans 8:15-17 says that we can be free from fear because we were adopted into the family of God. He speaks to how we can cry out to our Heavenly Father. Paul says that the Spirit sees us and validates us as sons and daughters of the most high God! Wow! To have attunement with the Spirit and be seen on such a deep level is something I can really dream about. We may continue to suffer due to whatever experience we may have had that left its mark, but we don’t have to suffer alone. In this suffering we can also allow it to glorify God and bring restoration and healing in ways we would have never thought possible.
Romans 8:37-39 brings tears to my eyes as I read that literally nothing can separate us from God’s love. This gives us more evidence that God’s love is not something we earn; and it is not taken away because of our choices. God is for us 100%!
Romans 11
I love how Paul uses a plant metaphor to reveal God’s sovereignty, holiness, and grace in Romans 11:15-23. I personally love plants because I get to see and experience the growth. I love to see the plant as a baby plant; I get to nurture it by listening to my intuition and giving the plant what it needs, and then I get to see it become a strong beautiful plant. Paul describes that a plant is only healthy and fruitful when it is connected to the root. Similar to how we on our own cannot boast in our own strength, but whatever strength we do have or fruit that has been grown, it is only because God has allowed his strength to come into us. Paul explains that when a branch is broken off, which is representative of us falling away from believing in God, God will graft us back in. When our faith is weak and we don’t believe anymore, that is like the branch weakening and eventually breaking off from the tree. Grafting is a horticultural technique where two or more plants are cut in a specific way, fused together, and then begin to grow together, eventually forming a single branch. Now get this: grafting is used because, when a branch is grafted to another rooted branch, it increases the fruit and leaf production by 20-60%. Grafting is also seen as risky and time-consuming, which is why farmers may choose not to use grafting. This is why I love learning about God through the world he created. God is so creative in showing us who he is and what his qualities are. Even if we have fallen out of faith and have been broken off from the tree of life (which is Him), it is not over! God will scoop us back up and endure in the time consuming and risky process of grafting us back in. If you have fallen away and made some painful choices, don’t give up because when we are grafted back in, the number of fruits we can yield is even so much more than before. The story we bring as we come back to God is what God uses to transform more hearts to come back to Him. That is the whole idea! To redeem this world and reconcile our broken relationship with Him. He wants all of us, and if us going through difficulties gives us a testimony that can connect and transform someone else’s heart, it is worth it.
When I read Romans 11:36, it makes me think about the movie Avatar. In the movie, there is one tree of life that all life sustains growth and energy from. This is God. God is the one true life source that all life flows from him. It also makes me think about another book I read last year with my husband Shawnn called The Garden Within by Dr. Anita Phillips. In this book, Dr. Anita talks about the metaphors related to God and plants.
Ending my reflection, I pray. God, I thank you for the amazing spectrum of plants you give us. I thank you for the opportunities you give us to see who you are and to receive from you in our everyday life. I pray that you give us hope and long-suffering as our roots grow in you. As we connect to the source so we can bear fruit. Amen.
Jessica Cooper
