Of Zombies and the Walking Dead

A year and a half ago, I developed an insistent pain below my right ribcage. I had a gut feeling the problem was my gallbladder. Sensing it would mean an interruption to my life, I ignored it until I couldn’t. So last Wednesday, the surgeon excised the offending organ.
It was a zombie. It was functioning at 0 percent. Zero. You’d think it could do better than that just by being present, but no. My gallbladder was among the walking dead.
I was once dead too. I remember what it was like: the hopelessness, the fear, the shame, the uncertainty, the pain. But God excised my zombie self – my bondage to sin – and made me alive with Christ. 
Check out Ephesians 2:1,4-7: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. . . . But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
God keeps excising even after we are adopted into His family through faith in Christ. “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit,” we learn in John 15:2.
I’ve gone through some non-surgical excising over the years, and it’s more painful than trying to sit up right now and type, all the while cursing the person who decided to put clasps and buttons at belly-level. But it also reaps greater benefits. I can tell you right now that I’m certain I’ll have more gastrointestinal issues despite the loss of my zombie gallbladder, whereas by God’s grace I’ve forever left behind unhealthy habits and mindsets.
This is going to be a short post. I’m tired. I’m sore. But I want you to know that you can trust God through the excising, through the dying to self that makes you increasingly more alive in Christ. 
Let the words of Galatians 2:20 be true of me: For I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
The End.