Swallowed Up!

Swallowed up - those words bring a couple of things to mind, like chocolate chip cookies in my possession and ducklings - yes, ducklings.  

My kids were at the pond behind our house one day, and they raced home to relay a very intriguing story.  Evidently, a duckling, who was trailing behind his brothers and sisters, disappeared underneath the water in one fail swoop of something!  After much speculation and a phone conversation with my father as to the identity of the unidentifiable monster in our pond who could swallow a duckling whole, we finally determined that the monster was no montster at all.  Evidently, a large mouth bass will, in fact, swallow a duckling if its mouth is large enough.

You would think after 43 years of life - at the time - that I would been privy to that little tidbit of trivia, but somehow, it escaped my educational training!  That poor duckling had been "swallowed up" into something else.  His life had been snuffed out...swallowed into another living thing.

So, when I read Paul's writing in I Corinthians 5:4, my mind can picture exactly what he's talking about:  "For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life."  I don't know about you, but I CRAVE that my mortality would be "swallowed up" by life.   

What in the world does that mean?  Well, I take it to mean that in my flesh - in my bodily tent - I don't necessarily want to lose myself.  I just want MORE of something that isn't me!  I want Jesus to "further clothe" me, so that my sin, my ugliness, my selfish behaviors, my stinky attitudes, my harsh words, my mortality, my "humanness" would be swallowed up in His life - in His peace, His perfection, His unselfish motives, His positiveness, His comforting words, His divinity, His perfection!  Oh, that on a daily basis, more and more of Him would show forth in me...that my mortality - my humanness  - would be gobbled up, "swallowed up" by His amazing Life. 

Thank You, Lord, that You desire that for me...even more than I desire it for myself.  I want Your life to swallow mine, so that I can show forth Your life to those around me.  Thank You, Jesus.  Swallow me up, today!  I love You, Lord.  I really, really do!