Hello! What’s the story behind your url?
“Praise the Lord! I’m dead!” Is a quote from Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Life. My mom and I were studying it for school when I was...fifteen? Sixteen, maybe? And the whole book really changed my perspective on Christianity as a whole. Reading it felt like watching puzzle pieces click into place one by one—still not forming a complete picture, but finally making sense of something that had previously seemed like a total mess.
My favorite part was when (if memory serves) Watchman Nee was a young Christian, struggling with the notion of his ‘old man’ (his flesh, his sinful self) having to die to make way for the ‘new man’ (a flesh and spirit belonging to God). He was praying and praying for God to kill the ‘old man’ in him, when he finally stumbled across a scripture (I can’t remember which one) that made him realize: the ‘old man’ was already dead, crucified with Christ. He immediately jumped up and ran through the house, yelling, “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, I’m dead!” (No doubt to the utter confusion of his neighbors and housemates).
I’ve always loved the juxtaposition of morbidity and joy in that statement, how the utter ridiculousness of it kinda encapsulates the ridiculousness of all Christian joy. And, it’s been a good reminder for me too. Starting out on Tumblr, I’d already been a terrible jerk on more than one social media platform—about opinion and politics and who knows what else. “Praise the Lord, I’m dead” was meant as a constant callback to the fact that my opinionated, angry, prideful self was dead now, and the things I did or said (online or elsewhere) should never spread the stink of its corpse. It’s not a vision I always live up to, but it’s a vision I’d like to, nonetheless.
Thank you very much for asking!