Friday, October 11, 2013

Walking

I ran across walking as a metaphor for how we walk through life's pain and suffering while reading a chapter from Tim Keller's new book on the subject.  I think this metaphor is helpful.  Let me briefly explain.

God wants us in this moment.  The past is the past, and the future is the future.  It is far too easy to get sucked into either one.  And life is long.  Sure, it will go past in the blink of an eye, but as it is lived, it is lived one day at a time, a marathon, putting one foot in front of the other one.

I want to live a good life.  I want to live a life that is honoring to God.  But I have besetting sin.  I have indwelling sin.  I have real struggles.  What to do?

My natural reaction is to want to have it all fixed at once.  And I put all my emotional energy into some resolution about being actually godly now.  But when I do that, I am relying on my own righteousness, instead of God's righteousness for me.  I look forward to the rest of my life and think, "Oh, what an opportunity I have to fix myself and make up for all the bad stuff I've done and thought and said in the past."  And I lean on that theoretical future as a way to make God happy with me.

But that is not what the Gospel is.  That is not the way the Gospel motivates.  I look at my sanctification as a sprint to get to the destination now - godliness - so that I may rest in it for the rest of my life and set up a nice clean record so that I will feel better about myself when I come to die.  No good.

God is good, and he is sovereign over our sanctification.  And I think walking is a good metaphor for showing trust and for showing the way God works.

By walking into the future a step at a time, I have an unhurried trust that God is with me and will care for me.  Eventually, enough of these small, slow, deliberate, God-ward steps will add up to something.  It will get me somewhere.  But there is no short-cut teleportation to glorification in the Christian life.  Oh well.

We are pilgrims.  Let's go with God, and lets go with each other.  Step by step.  We are not perfect.  But our God is.