continuation chapter two 2.1
Today, let us talk about the gritty, determined, thoroughly human work that is required to be free from sin. On the path to perfection, there are roles to play. God's grace is the wind—a magnificent, roaring, endless gale of generosity, a hurricane of holy help. But we, my friend, must raise the sail. And raising a sail is not done by sitting in the hull, thinking positive thoughts about wind, and declaring, "I am a sail-raiser in Jesus' name!" It involves pulling ropes, untying knots, climbing masts, and probably getting a splinter or two in places you'd rather not mention. It involves calluses, not cushions. The sailor who refuses to touch the ropes but insists he's "trusting the wind" will stay in the harbor forever, growing barnacles on his bottom, and eventually becoming a tourist attraction: "Come see the Man of Faith, who believed so hard the boat hasn't moved in forty years."
Let me paint you a simple picture, so absurd that its truth will be unavoidable. It's like a parable, but with more malaria.
Imagine a man struck down by a severe case of malaria. His body is a furnace; his joints ache as if he's been tenderized with a mallet wielded by a very enthusiastic chef. He prays to God for healing. "Lord, with all my faith, I believe You will heal me!" he cries from his sweat-drenched bed, voice cracking with the kind of sincerity that makes angels pause and take notes. Then, the doctor arrives—a miracle in itself, a human being trained by human knowledge, arriving on time—and places the anti-malarial tablets on the bedside table. Little white pills of possibility. And the man refuses them. He waves a feverish, trembling hand and says, "No, no, take those abominations away. If I take the medicine, I'm not trusting God completely. That would be putting my faith in pharmaceuticals, not in the Almighty. My faith alone is enough. I'm just going to rest in the finished work of the cinchona tree. I'm going to 'stand on the Word'... from a horizontal position... while hallucinating from the fever." And he rolls over, shivering, smiling the smile of the profoundly deluded, the smile of a man who has confused stubbornness with sanctification.
Now, tell me, what will become of that man? We all know the tragic punchline. His faith will be sincere. His prayers will be genuine. His theological position on divine healing will be impeccably orthodox, with all the right Greek words footnoted. And his funeral will be well-attended, with people standing around the casket whispering, "He's in a better place now," which is true, but he could have been in a better place here, too, namely alive and swallowing tablets. God, in His extravagant wisdom, provided the healing agent within the bark of that tree, hidden away for centuries like a love letter waiting to be opened by a scientist with a microscope. Grace grew the tree in some distant jungle. Grace guided the chemist who isolated the compound. Grace mixed the ingredients into a stable pill. Grace delivered the tablet to a pharmacy near you, probably via a truck driver named Grace, who was listening to Amazing Grace on the radio. But the man has a critical, indispensable role: he must rise from his bed—however feebly, however dramatically—pour a glass of water, lift the tablet to his lips, and swallow. Without that tiny, trembling act of human cooperation, the prayer, however beautiful, however poetic, however theologically sound and beautifully alliterated, ends in a coffin. Healing requires a partnership, a duet, not a solo performance with God as the backing track and man as the passive audience member waving a lighter.
The struggle with sin operates on this very same divine principle. We pray, with great passion, with the kind of fervor that makes our prayer partners slightly uncomfortable, "Deliver me from this anger! Free me from this lust! Pry this greed from my cold, clutching fingers! Break the chains, Lord, break every fetter!" And then, having prayed, having exhausted ourselves with holy vocabulary, we lie back on the spiritual mattress and wait for the lightning bolt. We fold our hands over our chests like a corpse in training. But the prayer is the diagnosis, not the prescription. It's the X-ray, not the surgery. We must then pick up the "anti-malarial tablets" for the soul. The prayer opened the pharmacy; now you have to swallow the medicine. But we'd rather have the prayer than the pill, because the prayer feels spiritual and dramatic, while the pill just feels like hard work and you have to remember to take it three times a day with meals.
Now, what on earth are those tablets? Let me show you through another picture, because I'm in a parabolic mood and the paint is still wet.
You can own a library that groans under the weight of books on hydrodynamics. You can fill entire shelves with volumes on the physics of floating, the history of the backstroke, the biographies of Olympic champions. You can memorize the chemical composition of chlorine and write a doctoral thesis titled "The Ontological Significance of Buoyancy: A Theological and Biomechanical Analysis of Not Sinking." Your thesis can be peer-reviewed by the top swimming theologians of our time. You can attend lectures given by the world's greatest swimmers, sitting in the front row, nodding along to their PowerPoint presentations on breathing technique and the proper angle of hand entry. You can even acquire a certificate of swimming theory, beautifully framed in gold leaf, stating that you have believed in the principles of buoyancy with your whole heart and have successfully completed 120 credit hours of thinking about water. You can wear a T-shirt that says "I'm a Swimmer" with a little fish symbol. But the moment a mischievous friend—or an act of God, or a slippery pool deck—throws you into the deep end, that theoretical knowledge becomes spectacularly, hilariously useless. The books won't inflate and save you. The diploma is not a flotation device. The framed certificate will not turn into a life preserver and gently cradle you to safety. There is one thing, and one thing alone, that bridges the chasm between theory and survival: you must get in the water. You must flail, swallow a horrifying amount of chlorinated liquid, come up spluttering and embarrassed with your dignity floating somewhere near the diving board, and practice the strokes yourself. Again and again and again. The knowledge of swimming has never mastered a single stroke for a single human being. It has never pulled anyone to the side of the pool. It just sits there in the books, looking profound and smelling faintly of mildew, while the drowning man sinks to the bottom, his head full of elegant theories about the physics of arm rotation.
Today, let us talk about the gritty, determined, thoroughly human work that is required to be free from sin. On the path to perfection, there are roles to play. God's grace is the wind—a magnificent, roaring, endless gale of generosity, a hurricane of holy help. But we, my friend, must raise the sail. And raising a sail is not done by sitting in the hull, thinking positive thoughts about wind, and declaring, "I am a sail-raiser in Jesus' name!" It involves pulling ropes, untying knots, climbing masts, and probably getting a splinter or two in places you'd rather not mention. It involves calluses, not cushions. The sailor who refuses to touch the ropes but insists he's "trusting the wind" will stay in the harbor forever, growing barnacles on his bottom, and eventually becoming a tourist attraction: "Come see the Man of Faith, who believed so hard the boat hasn't moved in forty years."
Let me paint you a simple picture, so absurd that its truth will be unavoidable. It's like a parable, but with more malaria.
Imagine a man struck down by a severe case of malaria. His body is a furnace; his joints ache as if he's been tenderized with a mallet wielded by a very enthusiastic chef. He prays to God for healing. "Lord, with all my faith, I believe You will heal me!" he cries from his sweat-drenched bed, voice cracking with the kind of sincerity that makes angels pause and take notes. Then, the doctor arrives—a miracle in itself, a human being trained by human knowledge, arriving on time—and places the anti-malarial tablets on the bedside table. Little white pills of possibility. And the man refuses them. He waves a feverish, trembling hand and says, "No, no, take those abominations away. If I take the medicine, I'm not trusting God completely. That would be putting my faith in pharmaceuticals, not in the Almighty. My faith alone is enough. I'm just going to rest in the finished work of the cinchona tree. I'm going to 'stand on the Word'... from a horizontal position... while hallucinating from the fever." And he rolls over, shivering, smiling the smile of the profoundly deluded, the smile of a man who has confused stubbornness with sanctification.
Now, tell me, what will become of that man? We all know the tragic punchline. His faith will be sincere. His prayers will be genuine. His theological position on divine healing will be impeccably orthodox, with all the right Greek words footnoted. And his funeral will be well-attended, with people standing around the casket whispering, "He's in a better place now," which is true, but he could have been in a better place here, too, namely alive and swallowing tablets. God, in His extravagant wisdom, provided the healing agent within the bark of that tree, hidden away for centuries like a love letter waiting to be opened by a scientist with a microscope. Grace grew the tree in some distant jungle. Grace guided the chemist who isolated the compound. Grace mixed the ingredients into a stable pill. Grace delivered the tablet to a pharmacy near you, probably via a truck driver named Grace, who was listening to Amazing Grace on the radio. But the man has a critical, indispensable role: he must rise from his bed—however feebly, however dramatically—pour a glass of water, lift the tablet to his lips, and swallow. Without that tiny, trembling act of human cooperation, the prayer, however beautiful, however poetic, however theologically sound and beautifully alliterated, ends in a coffin. Healing requires a partnership, a duet, not a solo performance with God as the backing track and man as the passive audience member waving a lighter.
The struggle with sin operates on this very same divine principle. We pray, with great passion, with the kind of fervor that makes our prayer partners slightly uncomfortable, "Deliver me from this anger! Free me from this lust! Pry this greed from my cold, clutching fingers! Break the chains, Lord, break every fetter!" And then, having prayed, having exhausted ourselves with holy vocabulary, we lie back on the spiritual mattress and wait for the lightning bolt. We fold our hands over our chests like a corpse in training. But the prayer is the diagnosis, not the prescription. It's the X-ray, not the surgery. We must then pick up the "anti-malarial tablets" for the soul. The prayer opened the pharmacy; now you have to swallow the medicine. But we'd rather have the prayer than the pill, because the prayer feels spiritual and dramatic, while the pill just feels like hard work and you have to remember to take it three times a day with meals.
Now, what on earth are those tablets? Let me show you through another picture, because I'm in a parabolic mood and the paint is still wet.
You can own a library that groans under the weight of books on hydrodynamics. You can fill entire shelves with volumes on the physics of floating, the history of the backstroke, the biographies of Olympic champions. You can memorize the chemical composition of chlorine and write a doctoral thesis titled "The Ontological Significance of Buoyancy: A Theological and Biomechanical Analysis of Not Sinking." Your thesis can be peer-reviewed by the top swimming theologians of our time. You can attend lectures given by the world's greatest swimmers, sitting in the front row, nodding along to their PowerPoint presentations on breathing technique and the proper angle of hand entry. You can even acquire a certificate of swimming theory, beautifully framed in gold leaf, stating that you have believed in the principles of buoyancy with your whole heart and have successfully completed 120 credit hours of thinking about water. You can wear a T-shirt that says "I'm a Swimmer" with a little fish symbol. But the moment a mischievous friend—or an act of God, or a slippery pool deck—throws you into the deep end, that theoretical knowledge becomes spectacularly, hilariously useless. The books won't inflate and save you. The diploma is not a flotation device. The framed certificate will not turn into a life preserver and gently cradle you to safety. There is one thing, and one thing alone, that bridges the chasm between theory and survival: you must get in the water. You must flail, swallow a horrifying amount of chlorinated liquid, come up spluttering and embarrassed with your dignity floating somewhere near the diving board, and practice the strokes yourself. Again and again and again. The knowledge of swimming has never mastered a single stroke for a single human being. It has never pulled anyone to the side of the pool. It just sits there in the books, looking profound and smelling faintly of mildew, while the drowning man sinks to the bottom, his head full of elegant theories about the physics of arm rotation.
continuation chapter two 2.1
Today, let us talk about the gritty, determined, thoroughly human work that is required to be free from sin. On the path to perfection, there are roles to play. God's grace is the wind—a magnificent, roaring, endless gale of generosity, a hurricane of holy help. But we, my friend, must raise the sail. And raising a sail is not done by sitting in the hull, thinking positive thoughts about wind, and declaring, "I am a sail-raiser in Jesus' name!" It involves pulling ropes, untying knots, climbing masts, and probably getting a splinter or two in places you'd rather not mention. It involves calluses, not cushions. The sailor who refuses to touch the ropes but insists he's "trusting the wind" will stay in the harbor forever, growing barnacles on his bottom, and eventually becoming a tourist attraction: "Come see the Man of Faith, who believed so hard the boat hasn't moved in forty years."
Let me paint you a simple picture, so absurd that its truth will be unavoidable. It's like a parable, but with more malaria.
Imagine a man struck down by a severe case of malaria. His body is a furnace; his joints ache as if he's been tenderized with a mallet wielded by a very enthusiastic chef. He prays to God for healing. "Lord, with all my faith, I believe You will heal me!" he cries from his sweat-drenched bed, voice cracking with the kind of sincerity that makes angels pause and take notes. Then, the doctor arrives—a miracle in itself, a human being trained by human knowledge, arriving on time—and places the anti-malarial tablets on the bedside table. Little white pills of possibility. And the man refuses them. He waves a feverish, trembling hand and says, "No, no, take those abominations away. If I take the medicine, I'm not trusting God completely. That would be putting my faith in pharmaceuticals, not in the Almighty. My faith alone is enough. I'm just going to rest in the finished work of the cinchona tree. I'm going to 'stand on the Word'... from a horizontal position... while hallucinating from the fever." And he rolls over, shivering, smiling the smile of the profoundly deluded, the smile of a man who has confused stubbornness with sanctification.
Now, tell me, what will become of that man? We all know the tragic punchline. His faith will be sincere. His prayers will be genuine. His theological position on divine healing will be impeccably orthodox, with all the right Greek words footnoted. And his funeral will be well-attended, with people standing around the casket whispering, "He's in a better place now," which is true, but he could have been in a better place here, too, namely alive and swallowing tablets. God, in His extravagant wisdom, provided the healing agent within the bark of that tree, hidden away for centuries like a love letter waiting to be opened by a scientist with a microscope. Grace grew the tree in some distant jungle. Grace guided the chemist who isolated the compound. Grace mixed the ingredients into a stable pill. Grace delivered the tablet to a pharmacy near you, probably via a truck driver named Grace, who was listening to Amazing Grace on the radio. But the man has a critical, indispensable role: he must rise from his bed—however feebly, however dramatically—pour a glass of water, lift the tablet to his lips, and swallow. Without that tiny, trembling act of human cooperation, the prayer, however beautiful, however poetic, however theologically sound and beautifully alliterated, ends in a coffin. Healing requires a partnership, a duet, not a solo performance with God as the backing track and man as the passive audience member waving a lighter.
The struggle with sin operates on this very same divine principle. We pray, with great passion, with the kind of fervor that makes our prayer partners slightly uncomfortable, "Deliver me from this anger! Free me from this lust! Pry this greed from my cold, clutching fingers! Break the chains, Lord, break every fetter!" And then, having prayed, having exhausted ourselves with holy vocabulary, we lie back on the spiritual mattress and wait for the lightning bolt. We fold our hands over our chests like a corpse in training. But the prayer is the diagnosis, not the prescription. It's the X-ray, not the surgery. We must then pick up the "anti-malarial tablets" for the soul. The prayer opened the pharmacy; now you have to swallow the medicine. But we'd rather have the prayer than the pill, because the prayer feels spiritual and dramatic, while the pill just feels like hard work and you have to remember to take it three times a day with meals.
Now, what on earth are those tablets? Let me show you through another picture, because I'm in a parabolic mood and the paint is still wet.
You can own a library that groans under the weight of books on hydrodynamics. You can fill entire shelves with volumes on the physics of floating, the history of the backstroke, the biographies of Olympic champions. You can memorize the chemical composition of chlorine and write a doctoral thesis titled "The Ontological Significance of Buoyancy: A Theological and Biomechanical Analysis of Not Sinking." Your thesis can be peer-reviewed by the top swimming theologians of our time. You can attend lectures given by the world's greatest swimmers, sitting in the front row, nodding along to their PowerPoint presentations on breathing technique and the proper angle of hand entry. You can even acquire a certificate of swimming theory, beautifully framed in gold leaf, stating that you have believed in the principles of buoyancy with your whole heart and have successfully completed 120 credit hours of thinking about water. You can wear a T-shirt that says "I'm a Swimmer" with a little fish symbol. But the moment a mischievous friend—or an act of God, or a slippery pool deck—throws you into the deep end, that theoretical knowledge becomes spectacularly, hilariously useless. The books won't inflate and save you. The diploma is not a flotation device. The framed certificate will not turn into a life preserver and gently cradle you to safety. There is one thing, and one thing alone, that bridges the chasm between theory and survival: you must get in the water. You must flail, swallow a horrifying amount of chlorinated liquid, come up spluttering and embarrassed with your dignity floating somewhere near the diving board, and practice the strokes yourself. Again and again and again. The knowledge of swimming has never mastered a single stroke for a single human being. It has never pulled anyone to the side of the pool. It just sits there in the books, looking profound and smelling faintly of mildew, while the drowning man sinks to the bottom, his head full of elegant theories about the physics of arm rotation.
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