Posts
Suppose God tells you to do something which is an enormous test to your common sense, what are you going to do? Hang back? If you get into the habit of doing a thing in the physical domain, you will do it every time until you break the habit determinedly; and the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will get up to what Jesus Christ wants, and every time you will turn back when it comes to the point, until you abandon resolutely. “Yes, but – supposing I do obey God in this matter, what about...?” “Yes I will obey God if He will let me use my common sense, but don't ask me to take a step in the dark.”
Jesus Christ demands of the man who trusts Him the same reckless sporting spirit that the natural man exhibits. If a man is going to do anything worthwhile, there are times when he has to risk everything on his leap, and in the spiritual domain Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold by common sense and leap into what He says, and immediately you do, you find that what He says fits on as solidly as common sense.
At the bar of common sense Jesus Christ's statements may seem mad; but bring them to the bar of faith, and you begin to find with awestruck spirit that they are the words of God. Trust entirely in God, and when He brings you to the venture, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis, only one out of a crowd is daring enough to bank his faith in the character of God. (My Utmost for His Highest 5/30)
I think this is a very good description of what real faith looks like. It shows how “works” motivated by real faith will be produced in the life of a person who begins to get an accurate picture on the inside of the truth about God's character. Coming from a background of training that was backwards, I find these kind of explanations very helpful. Most of us who were brought up in a religious environment were probably trained with a great deal of emphasis on having all the right external symptoms. The problem lay in that there was a great deal of confusion and mystery surrounding the underlying reasons and motivations to produce those external behaviors. Usually the motives involved fear to a great degree with a lot of selfishness mixed in quite subtly.
“You must be good if you want to go to heaven (or avoid hell)” was one of the main themes. “You better obey or you will get a spanking (or some other form of arbitrary painful/shameful experience)” was another main mode of motivation. This kind of training did very little to nurture and strengthen our hearts to flourish and thrive. Instead, it created within us an image of a false picture of God that became so real and fearful that we either rejected Him altogether in favor of our more reasonable common sense or we perpetuated the lies as we hid within our fears and attempts to placate this confusing, threatening superpower hanging His inducements and threats over our lives.
Having “faith” in such a being is a very difficult proposition at best. What often happens is that most of our religious words end up getting transposed into meaning something other than their original use. Faith becomes known as an intense, worked-up desire to get something from God that we want and a desperate attempt to eliminate every conflicting thought or doubt that threatens to give God an excuse not to give it to us.
I speak from my own experience in this area but I strongly suspect that I am not the only one who suffers from this systematic theology of lies about God. That is one reason I have so much benefited from reading this book year after year, for it keeps reminding me of what is the most important thing about being human and being truly alive. I am finding that as my internal picture of God becomes more and more consistent with the real truth about Him, that true faith begins to grow spontaneously within me and I am challenged to throw myself in reckless abandon onto what Jesus says about Himself. The courage and reason to do so comes from a heart awakening within me to the alluring call of its original designer who created it to find its highest fulfillment and joy in superseding the common sense of an isolated, left-brained religion and leap into the arms of love. My heart can only find satisfaction in relationships with other hearts. And all of our hearts will never be completely satisfied until they come into full intimacy with the Heart from which they were born and came into existence.
I think I would like to adopt this passage as my personal mission statement, the description of what I want my life to look like. No, better yet, I choose to do that. I want to have an awestruck spirit in the words of God. I want to trust entirely in God, and when He brings me to the venture, see that I take it. I want to be that one out of a crowd that is daring enough to bank his faith in the character of God.
I choose to leap into the words of Jesus inviting me to risk everything on who He really is and trust Him to catch me like a little child screaming with glee landing in his father's strong arms.
“Truly, I say to you, If you do not have a change of heart and become like little children, you will not go into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3 BBE)
