To Live is Christ

This may sound cliché-like, but it shouldn't, because it's gospel.
Without Jesus, I am nothing. Nothing.

But we first have to fall before we realise how far we've fallen. And thus I often find myself, slipping, sliding, clawing at the dirt, desperately trying not to lose what little grip I have left, until it all finally gives way. Then I fall, fast. Plummeting into utter oblivion, wondering how much lower one go. Once you're there, feeling rock bottom is inevitable.

How do we get there? It doesn't happen instantaneously. People never crumble in a day. Giants, seemingly strong and unconquerable, are slowly chipped away, piece by piece, until they are undermined. Like a slow erosion process.

Now for the bombshell: It happens from within! Yes, we are the cause, our own worst enemy. Self.

To overcome, we must die. Not temporarily. Self will not share the preeminence. We cannot be even partly alive to the things of this world. 

"For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Colossians 3:3 

How we feel, what people do to us, things that don't go according to plan- none of this concerns us. What happens to us here, ultimately, doesn't matter anymore. We are already dead.  
 
Then we say: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Philippians 1:21