On Getting Out of Bed

The decision to get out of bed is the decision to live. It is a claim that life is worth living despite the risk and uncertainty and the inevitability of suffering—one of the few things we can know for certain in this life.

Eventually we fold in on ourselves, unable to commit, or only committing to things half-heartedly, exhausted by our own sense of inadequacy. This is despair.

Sometimes the risks of life overwhelm us, and we avoid making a decision.

We wager all other possible actions by choosing one. Whenever we choose a medical treatment or a school for our kids or a career path, we risk something—being wrong, failure, regret, time, poverty, and so on. Whenever we sin, we wager offense against God and the possibility of uncontainable harm to others (sin is never containable). Whenever, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we turn from sin and choose to honor God and love our neighbor, we wager our fleshly desires. Like Paul, it costs us to obey. To deny sin is to die to self. And that, too, testifies to those watching. It is precisely
because our actions are wagers that they communicate something about us and our understanding of the world.

our actions always speak.

For the stoic, though they can choose to face death bravely, death is the final word. For the Christian, death has been conquered, so we can face it bravely regardless of our fears. We can take a step to the block, confident in our hope.

Any form of evangelism that has nothing at wager has nothing to say.

What’s the bravest thing you ever did?” The father replies, “Getting up this morning.”20

The Judge of all has declared His creation—of which you are no small part, no mistake, and no error—to be good. There is no countermanding that declaration. We can choose to accept that our lives are objectively good before God, or we can deny it. We can assent to God’s act of creation and preservation, or we can vainly rebel against it. But when we choose to affirm what God has already done in creating us, what God is already doing in granting us breath and in preserving His world and us in it, we worship Him.

Life will inevitably crush you, at one point or another, and your response to that suffering will testify to something. There will be times when subjectively you will be convinced that life is not worth living, and that existence is not beautiful or good but onerous and meaningless. When those times come, your obligation is to look toward others as witnesses of God’s goodness, to remember your responsibilities to care for others, and to remember that you are always a witness, whether you
want to be or not. But most of all, remember that you are God’s beloved. This means acknowledging the objective reality that life is good, and that despite our distress, we must get up and carry on.