This past week I had a very encouraging phone conversation with a close
friend who lives in another part of the country. He has been struggling with debilitating depression and discouragement, even being briefly hospitalized.
He told me that God had just shown him that a seemingly innocent, long-time, recreational pursuit was really an idol in his life, giving him an empty identity as a “success.” In the process, God showed him other idols as well (which he enumerated) that he had used in the same way over the years, all keeping him from God Himself, alone, as his complete identity.
Then he said to me, in a text message, “He seems to have brought me back to when I was 20 and first met Him. I had nothing but Him…and feel like nothing matters now but Him…God, open my heart and eyes to Your great, personal love for me as well as others.”
Do you see it? This illustrates, beautifully, exactly what I discussed in last week’s blog posting. My friend was “waking in the light” with me, sharing all his recently-recognized idols freely, fully and openly—prerequisite #1 to “Walking by Faith ”
Then, he felt as though God had taken him back some 45 years to being just as he was as a brand new Christian. He felt again, as he did then; “nothing matters now but Him.” He was again seeing himself as a helpless, little child: “Daddy’s got everything!”—prerequisite #2 to “Walking by Faith.”
It is always so interesting to me that whenever we investigate God’s big-picture purpose for our lives, we always are taken back to the foundational idea, presented in a sermon Martin Luther preached in 1525. It was about the two, dramatically, opposite but equally crucial messages God preaches throughout the Bible. Luther’s description of them was as two, fraternal twins, with distinctly different personalities—LAW AND GOSPEL
Luther felt that distinguishing, and then living in light of that difference, is the very essence of Christianity. “Whoever knows well how to distinguish the Gospel from the Law should give thanks to God and know that he is a real theologian.” (Excerpts from Luther’s sermon are available online @ Lutheran Theology: An Online Journal)
The Lord graciously opened the eyes of my friend to show him, for the first time just last week, that he had consistently, for years, broken the very first one of God’s Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3).
He realizes that by acknowledging that sin, and then brutally walking in the light and confessing it publicly, he is taking a step he has not taken before. As he continues to walk in this way, he is fulfilling prerequisite #1 in “Walking by Faith.”
In our conversation, he also clearly recognized and confessed that step #2 in walking by faith—trusting completely the Daddy who loves him unconditionally—will be difficult for him. A loving father who actually cares for him is a complete anomaly to him, as the men who were married to his mother as he was growing up were abusive, perverted, and, thankfully, very temporary. He can’t imagine a father you can actually trust with your life—like God!
However, he also understands clearly, and lamented to me, that he has no one in the area where he lives with whom he can walk, transparently, as a little child. He knows Christianity is a corporate experience, and can’t be lived alone successfully. His friends and family are sincere Christian people, but they and the churches they attend know only to encourage him to “Be obedient! Try harder! You can do it!”
No, he can’t! Nor can any of us. We must be together, corporately, all as little children, so we can “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). Church is too often, unconsciously, for smiley, successful Christians who come to church on Sunday morning working hard at having it all together for all to see, like the pastor does. As one friend said, “An AA meeting for drunken sinners is more like the church I need. That’s more like church than church!”
This kind of church is where we are headed, as His people are learning more and more to walk by faith, as my depressed, discouraged friend is discovering. Yes, God is on the move! Grab Daddy’s hand and join Him where He’s going!
