Are You a Strong or Weak Christian?

A few months ago, I had a great conversation with a friend of mine, talking about popular conceptions of strength and weakness as it relates to the Christian life. The conversation was birthed out of a discovery I had made as I read through a small book that proposed strategies to control anger. One such meditation was particularly disturbing; the author used 1 Samuel 18:8-9 as an example to showcase the kinds of people that put on displays of envy, as it says in the text that after hearing about David's military exploits, Saul "eyed David from from that day and forward."

Here is the author's exhortation; I know it's a little lengthy, but it is such a descriptive explanation of the mentality of our moralistic, do-it-ourself hearts:

Weak people quickly surrender to eny. Weak, discontented people allow envy to creep into their hearts... Solomon said, "Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?" Only the strong can withstand envy. Are you jealous of the possessions that other have? Then you are weak. Are you envious of the talents, the attention, the praise, or the popularity of someone else? If so, you are a weak person. Only the strong can stand before envy... Jealousy is so strong that it grabs hold of hearts and quickly kindles the fire of wrath in them... Jealousy is a characteristic of a very weak person... David was a strong man because he lived to please God... You derive your strength from the one you want to please. If your desire is simply to please yourself, you will never be any stronger than you are right now and will remain a weak, uncontrolled person. If you seek to please God, you will learn to control your anger in the power of His might. Living a God-focused life enables you to learn to depend on the power of His strength. Are you weak or strong? Do you control envy and anger or do they control you? "Are you a Saul or David?"

Weakness and strength; what a fantastic opportunity to point us back to the Gospel! Because Jesus was strong for me, I am free to be weak! Yes! I will never defeat envy! I will never defeat jealousy! But God released me from sin's power and on my knees, I can approach His throne, knowing that because I am weak, I will fail. I will sin. I will succumb to temptation because I am a sinner that has been raised to life by the grace of God! I HAVE NO STRENGTH! It's all of Him!

I got angry when I read this excerpt from the book; I was eagerly anticipating the freeing message of the Gospel, but the only thing that seemed to be uplifting was the sentence, "Living a God-focused life enables you to learn to depend on the power of His strength." I hope I know what he's saying, but I don't know for sure. He and I may agree, but from what this excerpt seems to communicate, this author seems to endorse a "do more, try harder" version of sanctification.

2 Corinthians 12:9 says that His strength is made perfect in weakness! It is through our ready admission of how pathetically sinful we are that God's strength is most clearly displayed! If we are so strong, why does it matter if He is at all?

Tullian Tchividjian said in Part 10 of his sermon series on Ecclesiastes (as is fantastically apropos to this discussion):

We still have questions about the Gospel because we still haven't embraced beggarhood. We still haven't seen that we are needy and helpless beggars. We even deny beggarhood, as Christians, in the way that we think of spiritual progress. We think of spiritual progress in terms of getting stronger and stronger and more and more competent. Before you're a Christian you need Jesus a lot, and the goal is that when you get Holy Spirit magic power you start needing Jesus less and less and less; and we always qualify it by saying, "Thanks be to Jesus who is providing the power," but we're utilizing it and getting stronger and stronger. That is the reason why, for many Christians, when they think about "Gospel", what the Gospel is and what the Gospel does, they think it needs only to be applied to people outside the church. We would never say this, but spiritual growth is [equal to] becoming less and less dependent on Jesus.

 This is the state of our spirit, even after we believe the Gospel! Our sinful hearts are so quick to run away from the truth that we cannot do anything to save or sanctify ourselves; we are constantly looking for ways to become "stronger", when all we should be doing is begging that God makes us more and more comfortable with our weakness. The only thing that should get stronger and stronger in us is the reflex in our knees to hit the ground and seek God constantly.

And even the attitude of repentance is singularly enabled by the grace of God. Without Him transferring us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and softening our hearts we would have no desire at all to love Him or serve His people.

In all this, I want to affirm God's only-ness in our sanctification. He reveals Himself piece by piece, and we can do naught but respond in amazed love, admiration, and service.

We don't need to be strong, because He is.

He is our hope.

.DSN.

Sun Runs and Rain Fun

Minneapolis hasn't warmed up quite yet. We've had a few days that have flirtatiously batted their eyes at 70+ degree weather, but those days have been scarce. Very scare. The way I see it, one way to make the most of such beautiful weather is to go for a jog.

It was a beautiful day with a radiant sun and Minneapolites milling about, pushing strollers, watching their young ones, spending time with friends, or going for a job themselves. It was picturesque and hopefully a foretaste of the summer to come. The difficult thing were my individual mile times. I knew that if I pushed myself too hard, I might throw up, and that sounded awful, so I tried to pace myself. For my own dignity's (pride's) sake, I will neither reveal the miles nor the time for my run that day. The first half was glorious, but when I turned around to head back home, my legs were much less amicable towards my request for movement. In other words, I was pooped.

I finally got home and cooled down for about half of the time that it took me to run. I didn't make any spiritual-reality connection until my second extended run which I took last week. This was much different. I had now been in more of a consistent exercising habit, and I could feel that my body was much more accustomed to workouts. The other difference was that it had started to rain.  The rain started slowly, and I kept plodding along. I started to breathe more heavily and my legs started to feel heavier.

The sky darkened.

The wind picked up.

Huge drops of rain cascaded from the sky, drenching my clothes, and probably ruining my earbuds.

But here's what happened: my pace quickened.

I noticed after about a minute of the rain that my strides were much longer, and my breathing was much more controlled. I wasn't focusing on either of those things, but I noticed a marked difference in my determination and my body's control over my waning stamina. By the time I had finished, I looked at my timer and realized that I had shaved 6-8 minutes off of the time that it had taken to finish the first half of the run.

Then I got to thinking about how interesting of a parallel the comparison is of my first run to my second run. The first run looked easy. It was pleasant. It wasn't ostensibly challenging, but I had nothing to push me other than my own self. The constant sunshine tired my body and dried out my mouth, forcing me to focus much harder if I wanted to make any progress at all.

What a difference running in the downpour made! It wasn't pleasant. It wasn't fun. I wasn't able to work on my tan (or lack thereof). I didn't want to look around and enjoy the scenery. I just wanted to get home. But, I didn't have to focus and exert crazy strength like I would have had to if I was in the sun. My legs naturally adapted and my lungs overcame their difficulties to get through the rain as quickly as I could.

Paul uses the illustration of running a race at least 3 different times in the New Testament, so I believe that I'm in good company. The seasons of life that are enjoyable, fun, and not particularly pain-laden should be enjoyed. My sun run was certainly enjoyable; but it was also very difficult to sustain a lively clip because it was just that nice. Similarly, in the times of boon and blessing, it is so easy for our time in the Word and our time in prayer to fall off a cliff, because we don't feel like we need God anymore. That what the rain does. Those rainy seasons remind us so vividly of how we do need God, and it is often in those times that we don't even consider not spending time with Him because we know that we can't survive without Him. Rain has that affect of naturally picking up our pace for us and revealing the Lifter of our head.

Don't despise the rainy seasons. Use the constant reminders to drive you all the more often to your knees in prayer and self-losing reliance on the only One who saves, delivers, and restores.

God is our hope.

.DSN.