February 05, 2013
Swan Dive
I've seen video clips
of music concerts where entertainers do a swan dive off the stage and into the
arms of adoring fans. They are then passed along above the heads of the crowd
by people with up stretched hands. One video making the rounds is of a fan who
gets up on the stage after a show and arrogantly assumes he too is worthy of
being passed around. His wings are quickly clipped when he flies off the stage,
the crowd separates beneath, and he lands spread eagle in a face plant on the
ground. Believers sometimes attempt something similar, only we lovingly call it
a leap of faith. I thought of Jesus standing on the highest point of the temple
and Satan telling him to throw himself down, because after all, the Lord’s
angels would lift him up in their hands. Jesus’ response is a good reminder for
us as well, “It is also written: ‘Do not
put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Matt 4:7 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----It’s very easy to get your subconscious confused with reality. It’s easier to misperceive one as beginning where the other ends. Bias enters through these doors and throws us into the mosh pit. Your analogy makes it so clear. We interject ourselves into concepts where we do not belong because we leap into what we perceive rather than doing the hard work of building a stairway down which our perceptions will ground upon what is.
-----I’m not sure if God ever introduced the idea of the ol’ faith leap to us. I don’t recall seeing it in His Word. But even hearing or reading the term makes my mind uneasy by its ignorance of a very important element of faith. That element is kind of a loyalty thing, but not loyalty per say. Maybe its best expressed by simply saying one half of faith is faithfulness and the other is belief. With one hand grasping tightly to what has been found true according to a firm footing upon experience, reason, and revelation, the other hand can reach out for what truth has not yet been grasped. Without the handhold and footing, the other hand would grasp for any old cause of titillating perception rather than the often mundane truth. And the more titillated is the perception, the more the hand meant to grasp flies after the reaching hand as the feet then kick away from sanity. In mid air, faith flies in any direction. But in reality, faith can take only one direction. The handful of discovered truth guides the hand reaching for more.
-----So faith can not be a leap and be faith at all. It is more a structure building in you towards what you have next to perceive, which addition in turn queues even more. By holding tight to what is known for certain and walking firmly upon the processes God gives for knowing, faith intelligently reaches out to bring more of the unknown into the known.
-----We all will wind up in the mosh pit, either by throwing ourselves off the stage, or being thrown into it, or by faithfully building a stairway upon which we can gracefully descend into it, where we belong, holding high the One to Whom the glory belongs.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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