Monday, July 21, 2014
401 - Some People Don't Get It
Spirituality Column #401
July 22, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
July 22, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
Some People Don’t Get It
By Bob Walters
To
me it is the most confounding of divine mysteries.
I
can make lists all day long about what blocks people from faith in Christ, but
I cannot come up with one convincing answer explaining the apparent randomness
of who accepts Christ and who doesn’t.
For
years I did not “get it.” Then one
Sunday when I was 47 years old, sitting in a random church service, tears of
awakening and conviction unexpectedly pooled in my eyes. I was awakened to how special Christ is, and
convicted of how un-special I am. It’s
trite, but true. I had been one smart,
self-sufficient, well-traveled, intellectual and philosophical non-Jesus,
non-church tour-de-force since my teen years.
Those tears and their sincerity were as mysteriously random as it gets.
Other
holy mysteries have more accessible explanations. Ask any priest, minister, pastor, elder or
Sunday school teacher to define and defend the mystery of the Holy Trinity –
one Almighty God in three distinct persons in eternal, unchanging yet somehow
caring, creative community and love – and they can probably do it.
Ask
why Jesus had to die on the cross to forgive our sins for the glory of God, and
they can probably do it.
Ask
why man and woman – Adam and Eve – stumbled so horribly in the Garden at the
temptation of Satan to dishonor God and make the entire world – God’s entire
Creation – fall into corruption, and they can probably do it.
Ask
why we can believe the Bible, or why we should trust the Church, and they can
probably do it.
It’s
their job to explain that stuff.
But
ask why some people come to Christ and some don’t, and sincere preachers will
scratch their heads and say, “I wish I knew.”
John
3:16 says God sent Jesus, in love, to save us all, yet few find faith (Matthew
7:14) and, mysteriously, few are chosen (Matthew 22:14). So some get it, most don’t.
There are answers, of
course, but they are as mysterious as the question. One is, “The Holy Spirit awakened in their
soul.” Another is, “Because this soul is
of the elect.” Yeah, but … why this
soul, and not that soul?
Christians
pray for family, friends, neighbors, the downtrodden and even our enemies to
accept Christ, to share in the selfless love and unending faith of the Spirit
of the New Covenant, joining the remembrance and communion of Christ in the
family of God. Pleading for the unsaved
– especially loved ones – can be the hardest part of Christian faith. With perseverance, we keep trying.
But
still – why, and who, and when … ?
That’s
a mystery.
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