empty achievements; meaningless pleasures

john 12:32 -- and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all to myself.

Lord Jesus Christ, there is so much to draw us back: empty achievements, meaningless pleasures, unworthy concerns. there is so much to scare us back: a pride that is too cowardly to let itself be helped, a cowardly timidity that shirks to its own ruin, an anxiety of sin that shuns the purity of holiness as illness shuns the remedy. but you are still the strongest --so draw us, and even more strongly, to yourself. we call you our Savior and Redeemer, and you came to earth in order to free us from the chains in which we were bound or in which we had bound ourselves and in order to rescue the redeemed. this was your task, which you have completed and which you will complete until the end of time, for just as you yourself have said it, so will you do it: lifted up from the earth, you will draw all to yourself.

anti-climacus practice in christianity