I have read the introduction to Dallas Willard’s Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge. It is exciting. I feel hopeful. More than hopeful, I feel alive with hope. It is as if hope is coursing through my veins and my heart is pumping hope; milliliter after milliliter of hope. It is as if though it has been suddenly revealed to me that life can be exciting, fun, a quest, a discovery, a passion.
He speaks of adherence to Christianity as not demanding any type of educational prerequisite, because Christianity is an education in itself. The thought is exhilirating.
Oh for so long I have either knowingly, or subconsciously, stuffed doubt towards the recesses of my mind. I have explained away doubt with ‘faith’ when really I have weakened my faith by masquerading my blindness, my ignorance, my unfounded allegiances as ‘faith.’ What kind of faith is it that cannot support the blows of reason? What kind of a faith, which is by definition meant to be a shield, is it when you must protect it?
I have been protecting my faith, reasoning that to expose it to pure and undiluted facts would cause it to melt away, like cotton candy on the tongue. But it wasn’t faith at all I was protecting. Not true faith. Not a true faith in Christ, for that type of faith is strong and impenetrable; it is resilient and can stand adversity. It can support itself as well as support me.
But I have been foolish. I played the fool as I attempted to compartmentalize and let the ‘spiritual’ address the state of my soul, and the ‘practical’ or the ‘empirical’ dictate my actions and behavior.
Cloud and Townsend said that all growth, regardless of whether it takes place in a Bible study group, or whether it concerns learning life skills or developing new patterns of behavior, is spiritual growth, for the spiritual involves all of us, the whole of a being, not merely the ‘soul.’
I am excited to read more of this book. It’s as if I have been shown that Christianity can be an adventure that opens doors, that feeds the mind and body, not only the spirit.
What a life to expect, what a life to anticipate and hope for---one in which I am not torn apart internally by attempting to integrate what science tells me and what the ‘spiritual’ tells me---something that cannot be done any more than mixing oil and water…at least not the type of science and spiritual I have been familiar with. It seems that a true faith is able enough to support both, it is the umbrella under which both are protected.
Maybe I don’t have to hide from knowledge, or rather from knowing God as fully as I can for fear he’ll turn out to be a phony or a charlatan…maybe hiding was how I hid from being exposed as one myself, how I hid my petty, frail faith from the light of true, sincere, tested, and proved Faith.
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C.! Very insightful. I feel enthused by mere affiliation! Isnt it so easy to become so skeptical of either or both when its being thrust at you from two seemingly very different directions?! You pretty much blasted to pieces the fickle faith I carried as a banner. I love God. I know God intimately, but it does often times seem that psychology theology biology and any other ology you want to throw in the mix, has me backed into a corner. And I feel that I have to protect the faith; my faith. When it should be the opposite. When in its true essence, it is the opposite. In every other facet of life, it is encouraged to know as much as possible about something. But when it comes to Christianity, whenever the lines seem to blur, we turn away and mark it as territory that musnt be explored on some notion that it would be taboo or just "not proper" or going against your faith, but instead it enriches it, it brings it to life, it anchors you!
ReplyDeleteWell, its pretty late. And Im babbling, so without further adieu, I bid thee farewell and goodnight.