Faith without conviction
In middle school athletics, we used to play this terrible running game. The basis of it was, two lines assembled at each end line of the basketball court. Then one person was given a baton and placed in the middle of the court. They then had to run to either end, pass off the baton and the next person would run. Sounds easy enough…until you add a whistle. When the whistle blows, you have to change directions and go back to where you came from. Our coaches would torture us and blow the whistle right before we got to the line and force us to run all the way back down the court. The faster you ran, the more likely you were to get out of the middle.
Today, the Lord gave me a vision of myself playing this game. He showed me that this was a false reality that I live in. On one end of the court was God, and the other was sin/ the enemy.
In my life, I often view God and sin as polar opposites. I leave no room for balance and bounce from one extreme to the other. When I get close to sin, my default is to imagine a whistle and run in the opposite direction. This can help you stay out of some sins, but it totally destroys you when you are running the other direction from what God has for you.
The truth is, the enemy does not tell us the exact opposite of what the Lord tells us. He tweaks it enough to make it a half-truth. My tendency is to run the other direction, and in turn, I end up missing the lie and the truth. A friend articulated this tendency perfectly last night. He said, “You don’t flee the enemy. You resist him, and he flees from you.” When the enemy lies to me, I immediately want to prove him wrong by running the other direction, but satan’s lies aren’t the filter through which we see truth. I don’t have to run from lies. I just get to forget them and ask the Lord what He says about me.
So as it turns out, I am not caught in a straight line between Jesus and the enemy. I am walking down the path of life towards Jesus, and the enemy steps in and tries to distract me.
But why am I so prone to let him and believe him?
As I was talking to an agnostic-atheist today, the Lord brought conviction about that. The girl was saying that the first word “agnostic” refers to what you know. So gnostic is knowing, and agnostic is not knowing. The second one refers to belief. Theist is believing in God, and atheist is not believing. So this girl was saying that she does not believe there is a God, but she doesn’t really know. Ideally, a Christian would be a gnostic theist; someone who both believes and knows that God exists. But the Lord convicted me that I sometimes live my life as an agnostic-Christian, someone who believes in their heart that God exists, but isn’t convinced of it and therefore doesn’t live like it. He showed me that I often live my life in the reality that if He doesn’t show up, I will be OK. I take my needs elsewhere, just in case He doesn’t fill them. I take my desires as my own, just in case He decides not to fulfill them. I do not tell the world about Jesus, just in case I really am wrong.
On the way home, the Lord revealed to me that faith without conviction does not change the world. And faith without conviction will never leave me satisfied. The verse about resisting the enemy also says that if we draw near to God, He will draw near to us.
If I believe something, and am not convinced of it, I will constantly live in that world on the basketball court. I will run to Jesus but when I get almost to Him, I will get scared that He is not real and run the other way. And then when I get close to the enemy, I will get scared of sin and flee from him.
If I am to walk on the path of life, I must stop running from the enemy and start resisting him. If I am to walk on the path of life, I must believe and know that Jesus is real and is fully sufficient to meet my needs.
Beautiful, Darlin! You are an incredible writer. Thanks for your transparency. Love you!