Childish Christians

By Audrey Stallsmith

Since my father and I have had to miss evening church services lately due to his health issues, we’ve watched a few sermons on YouTube instead, including a couple on the Psalms by Timothy Keller. One concerned Psalm 88 where the deeply depressed writer rails at God, “Why are you turning your face from me, and looking the other way?”

Keller held that the Christ who was forsaken Himself must be able to identify with how we react when we feel the same way. Even when our desperation plunges us into the exaggerations of self pity, as it does here, where the Psalmist claims that all of his friends have deserted him.    

Of course, many of Christ’s had. During the time period that He was bearing the sins of humanity, after all, even God had to turn His back on His own Son. So, as Keller pointed out, if that Son could continue to serve His Father after being abandoned by Him under the most degrading of circumstances, we can continue to do so even if we only feel abandoned.         

The pastor also noted that it is natural at the beginning of our Christian life to concentrate on what God can do for us. But, Keller gently concluded, at some point along the line we should mature to the point that we actually are serving God, not expecting Him to serve us. 

Yes, spiritual growth often does seem to coincide with the stages of physical growth. At the beginning of earthly life, after all, babies are entirely selfish, placing huge demands on their parents but giving little in return. Except love—and even that usually is conditional. As is evidenced by the fact that toddlers often scream “I hate you!” when they don’t get what they want. And many an adult has turned his or her back on God in a similar sort of tantrum.    

But, as children mature, most will develop a love for their parents which is based on their long relationship rather than the rewards of it. Though the members of my family still tend to run back to Daddy for help when we have an emergency!

But, now that his balance problems have become worse, it is our turn to start holding him up as he and Mom once held us up when we were learning to walk. Our service to him is not something we resent, since it helps us feel as if we are giving back just a little of all that he has given to us over the years.

Of course, originally being all spirit, our heavenly Father had no such weaknesses. But we might say that he took on some when He assumed a body which could be killed—and when He chose to care about beings as prone to corruption as we are. 

Other adoptive parents frequently find that the children they’ve taken in have been emotionally scarred by the abuse or neglect they suffered in early childhood— sometimes to the point that they seem incapable of giving or accepting love. Unlike those other adoptive parents, God has the advantage that he can work directly on our damaged spirits to heal them, but only as much as we allow Him to do so.

And He now must depend on such imperfect adopted children as we are to bring more children into the family.  Although the Holy Spirit convicts people of their sinfulness better than we can, the convicted often need to see the Spirit “with skin on” to be convinced.     

As Andrew Murray put it in Abide in Christ, “Without the branch the vine can also do nothing. . .Such is the wonderful condescension of the grace of Jesus that just as His people are dependent on Him, He has made Himself dependent on them.” Unfortunately, too many of us are concentrating on what we think God owes us rather than what we owe Him.

Keller’s own recent diagnosis of pancreatic cancer has caused him to reiterate some of the ideas he presented in his old sermons. In a recent article for The Atlantic, he points out that “for millennia, people held a strong belief in their own inadequacy or sinfulness, and did not hold the modern assumption that we all deserve a comfortable life.”  

In other words, God never guaranteed us an easy ride in return for our allegiance to Him, even if our contribution has been as large as Keller’s has. Rather the opposite, in fact.

In Hebrews 11, Paul talks about those who served God in the Old Testament. Although some of them did “win battles and overthrow kingdoms” and “were kept from harm, and made strong again after they had been weak or sick” others “trusted God and were beaten to death. . .were laughed at and their backs cut open with whips. . .went about in skins of sheep and goats, wandering over deserts and mountains. . .hungry and sick and ill-treated—too good for this world.”

And how do we go about becoming too good for this world? Perhaps that happens when we start treating God more as our Father than as our boss. A boss, as Keller points out, is someone we serve in return for what he or she can give us by way of salary or benefits. And, if we don’t believe we are getting enough, we may walk out in a huff. 

An adoptive father, on the other hand, is somebody we have chosen to obey, not for what we can get out of it but because we love Him so much that we want to be part of His family. And, once His likeness begins to rub off on us, I think we may be well on our way to becoming—perhaps not too good for this world—but good enough to help this world.