Brave enough to make the final step
 Regular Network Norwich and Norfolk columnist James Knight writes a message to people on the cusp of becoming Christians.
Two people in my life, my father and a friend to whom I am quite close, both regularly attend church but maintain a claim that they have not felt any change in their life with regards to Christ revealing Himself to them. Now I am confident that God is working in their lives, and from the outside it is easy to observe the changes in both of them over the past few years. Just as in the book of Esther, to the observing mind God’s work is noticeable. I am sure we all know people who are on the cusp of revelatory change yet remain perturbed as they attend church each week and mix with Christian friends and family with no apparent epiphany, so I thought I would write a message that addresses how they can help themselves and how we can help them become brave enough or wise enough to make the final step.
I remember a time in the advent of my becoming a Christian over seven years ago when a dear friend asked me what was stopping me becoming a Christian that day. I said there was no way I could become a Christian that week as I had a week off work coming up and wanted to enjoy myself. He laughed out loud and turned it into an anecdote for his forthcoming sermon. Of course, I couldn’t have been more wrong, and it became clear with hindsight that my outside perception of what it would be like to take that final step turned out to be very different to the feelings elicited by taking the step. Some people say the first nine steps are relatively easy and that the tenth and final step often takes longer than the previous nine combined. All my experiences tell me this is true. I do not think it is very difficult to convince people that Christianity is based upon truth, particularly those with an open mind - but it is much more difficult to help them make the final step. The fact that one can acknowledge that Christianity is the truth and yet still not become a Christian until some time after provides us with an interesting psychological topic to consider.
The perception on the outside is of course very different to that which is perceived through real and personal knowledge of Christ, thus one can reach a philosophical conclusion that Christianity is true (as I believe my father has), yet still be held back by the last few lingering impediments that lurk on the final step before one fully commits. To be called into making the final step is to be blessed into God’s presence; thus in a sense it involves stripping from each individual all of these impediments - the things that are stopping a man from making that final step and having a full relationship with Christ.
This hesitation is perfectly understandable, after all, giving up the bad habits and enjoyable activities that God says are bad for us or an impediment can be a daunting and disenchanting spectre while one is standing on the final step waiting to commit - but it ought to be noticed that very often the disquieting doctrines turn out to be the most comforting in the long run - all of which are really blessings in disguise, as God has only our best interests at heart. When one sees the Bible not as a rulebook but as guidance for having the most blessed and fulfilled life in Christ then it is no longer seen as a mandate for control but as an opening for the most astounding relationship imaginable.
Perceptions of the world and our place in it
Our perception of the world and our place in it is often the key to our assessment of what a relationship with our Creator will be like. Those who think that this world owes them happiness are almost always those who are the least content; those who see people as tools for their own pleasure are usually the most selfish and parochial. But if we think of this world as an antecedent place; that is, a place to prepare ourselves for eternity with Christ - a place where we can have daily renewal in the grace of His presence, then the world seems much more like a place of contentment. And I think that that is how we can best find the inspiration to push ourselves into taking the final step. Imagine a set of holidaymakers all staying in the same three star hotel. Half of them think it is a one star hotel and half of them think it is a five star hotel. Those who think it is a five star hotel might regard it as quite disappointing, and those who think it is a one star hotel might decide that it is surprisingly pleasant. Similarly, with our perception of Christianity from just before the final step, that which seems the most disquieting doctrine is the one that makes us most content and renewed in the end, through the love and grace of Christ. Those who are realistic are the ones who invariably become optimistic. As long as a man keeps praying that God will help him overcome his prevarication and help him make the final step, he should be ok, particularly if his Christian friends are praying for him on a regular basis. Prayer is one of the most powerful tools we have (in some cases, the most powerful). In Isaiah we see that nothing returns to God empty:
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:10-11
As Christians we are bound to meet many people in our lives who are stuck on the final step, unable to commit because of something holding them back. The moment we start to analyse what it is that is holding them back, we see that we can often make comparisons with other analyses and use it to help us assess and identify the root of the prevarication. For example, when I have to make decision between two things, I am, of course, faced with the act of choosing. But if I broke down the alternatives into more than two parts I would not be left with simple mathematics or simple philosophy; I would eventually get down to the grass roots of my own thinking - in fact, my own distinct self that is broadly instantiated in ‘mind’ itself. Choice between two things – in this case, “Shall I take that final step or not?” – is always about so much more than binary decisions; it is a spectrum of history, activities, feelings, emotions, and the power of thought itself, all coming together as one couples choices with their own worldview.
In a similar sense, if you imagine something like a rock; once you zoom in on its deeper constituent parts, you will not find anything like what imagination has always supposed it to be. A hard rock, when probed further would reveal the deep mysteries of matter and sub-atomic energy - a whirling mass of particles and waves, consisting of a vast nexus of space, in which very small particles (electrons) move around the nucleus, and are bound to it by electric forces. That is to say, despite the rock’s appearance in front of our own naked eyes, everything appearing solid consists almost entirely of empty space. It is the exceptionally small particles dashing at stupendous speeds around the nucleus of the atom that gives atoms their solid appearance.
Now when I think of the self, it turns out under close scrutiny that my thinking, my memories, my reflections, and my introspection are the principal ingredients of the self. The composite being is ‘me’ and the external things are either wholly unconnected to my own thinking, or they are essential parts that have conditioned who and what I am. Now if any man is at that ninth step, trying to take the big and final step to become a Christian, it is going to be different to anything that the self has ever perceived before – his whole life and his own entire thinking process will have to be redressed – it will be a little like discovering for the first time what the subatomic structure of a rock is really like – you can never view its solidity in the same way again. Discovering the truth about Jesus is not simply seeing things a little differently, or discovering a few new sensibilities to adopt, it is a complete new worldview, as we become new Creations in God’s Spirit.
When I said a moment ago about the principal ingredients of the self - I was, of course, staying within the simple boundaries of two distinct things - those of the self and those of externality. When it comes to the composite being that is ‘selfhood’, each and every thing we do bears some relation to everything else we have done, and thus, a truth like this must be a truth that, when discovered, will alter our entire perception of everything - including most importantly, the self. Think of the situation another way. As a child, learning to swim and learning to ride a bike are two different things, but learning itself affects our psychological make-up in different ways to the way external objects affect us. Learning is instantiated in selfhood - external objects are not - they are the tools or vehicles through which selfhood forms its own identity. There is no water involved in learning to ride a bike - but the process of learning does not change irrespective of whether the (external) circumstances of learning change. But when we dig deeper into the self, we see that the internal processes which caused the learning can be wholly distinct (although non-distinguishable) while at a more conscious level almost identical – learning and growing and developing and sense-making and reasoning all seem to be part of a nexus of complexity that fits in with a complete universal principle – it is as though we were born to learn and grow and create and develop.
Once we realise this, we realise that the final step of committing oneself to Christ is nothing like the previous nine (the precursory philosophical investigations) - for in fact, we find something very deep here, we find that to acknowledge Christianity is true yet stay rooted to the ninth step is to disregard every ultimate reality within the framework of the self - it is tantamount to denying the whole self. The man who acknowledges Christianity is true yet stays rooted to the ninth step, is rather like a man who sees for the first time what the search for true love has been about all along - the true wonders of being blessed through his beloved and she through him - yet still rejects her to live a life of more failed relationships and unhappy trysts. This is very different to the man who does not believe Christianity is true, or the man who thinks there is no God, or the man who subscribes to one of the many false religions available to him - he is in a different position altogether if he stumbles upon the truth. He is like the man who is still searching for his perfect beloved after having many failed relationships and unhappy trysts; once her countenance meets his he will see the true wonders of being blessed through his beloved and she through him, and he will see for the first time what the search for true love has been about all along, and how futile all the failed relationships and unhappy trysts really were.
 With this in mind, regarding the man who acknowledges Christianity is true yet stays rooted to the ninth step, we ought to note that the above analogy is only partially right; more accurately the man who stays stuck on the ninth step is like the man who meets his beloved but is reticent about taking it any further for fear of being hurt or rejected. This is certainly true - I have in the past had confirmation from friends and acquaintances stuck on the ninth step that even though they believed Christianity to be true they didn’t want to commit for fear of doing something wrong or being rejected because of failings or finding that they would long for what they had been asked to give up. Moreover, given that his being on the ninth step will not reveal to him the true blessings and wonders that he is going to get from making that final commitment and knowing Christ for the first time, we cannot be surprised that this is tricky for him. I suppose his procrastination is a little like a writer putting off starting a lengthy novel until he knows he can afford the time and effort for total commitment to the end. Of course, he is not stuck, he would be free to abandon his writing at any time, but to abandon it half way through would be to render the hours spent writing the first half as wasted hours. Taking the final step is like committing ourselves to the writing of a novel, except that in this case the story is your own, a collaboration written by you with Christ holding your hand as you write.
So it seems clear that making the final step is not so much adding one more dimension to your personhood, rather it is applying all your inherent dimensions to the bigger picture of reality - shifting the whole framework of the self to accord with the reality that Jesus Christ is Lord of your life and wants to come in and get your house in order. This ‘shifting the whole framework’ shows why we soon wish to leave behind all the impoverishing things in our past, taking into the new life only the things which we know Christ can enrich. The moment a man decides to take the final step, his desire for an enriching renewal comes to the forefront of his consciousness - it is the moment when the awareness that this ‘real world’ and ‘real self’ are very far from being ultimate realities.
In saying this, I do not think that it is possible to take the final step all by ourselves; I think the final step is the step at which God becomes palpably involved in the change - He is probably more noticeable than He was in the previous nine. That is perhaps why it is the most protracted step, He knows that in many cases a man learns and grows more whilst on the ninth step than he has done in all the previous steps; thus, God will only make Himself known when the man is ready. Having seen this, we can also see that it is quite possible that a prolonged period of time resting on the ninth step is just what the man needs - hence the delay - and this, I think, goes some way to explaining why some people seem to have been on the ninth step for a long time. The wait is not to escape from the dialectic between the self and externality - it is to draw together realisations of the ‘self’ and ‘ultimate reality’ and make them one; after all, a man only really recognises his true potential when he is part of the eternal plan - when he realises that he was specially created to know God.
It should be noted that we Christians have a huge responsibility when we meet and get to know people who are stuck on the ninth step. Sometimes we have to show good discernment in distinguishing between situations when God is still making ‘final step’ changes and when the person needs extra help from his Christian friends in finding the motivation or clarity to go one step further. Many times men will linger on the ninth step, feeling they have been unsuccessful in their attempts to find God; but even the supposed unsuccess is still a greater success than not being on the step at all - therefore be thankful for all the good work that God has done in assisting a person on his journey towards the final step, and do all you can to help, knowing when to step back if required.
Christ had to talk to people whose knowledge of the universal whole was far less than our own. But it is a great fallacy to believe that the people around the time of Christ were less intelligent than us. The Greeks who calculated the spherical size of the earth from mathematics and shadows were some of the most intelligent people of all time. But the dialectic between knowledge and intelligence is quite different now; there are so many distractions that the majority of people are quite happy to leave thinking to the ‘thinkers’ and innovation to the ‘innovators’. But of course this produces all kinds of stagnancy - it is, in fact, the biggest wave of brainwashing with which modern minds have been afflicted.
The life for the blessed has to be the complete harmonisation of illimitable freedom for knowledge of the Divine. Therefore people cannot expect to find any semblance of ultimate happiness in things outside of God’s plan for them - but they can of course experience the slightest degree of pleasure in earthly life, what one might call ‘the shadow of the real object’. In other words, if creation is a gift from God, and ultimate pleasure is found in the Christian tenets of daily living, we should not be surprised to find hints of the happiness in the non-Christian tenets. Even in romantic heartbreak there comes a moment when the relief from pain begins to feel like a pleasure. But it is only the sort of pleasure that is alive in the context of momentary and deceptive relief - a temporary heartbreak desensitiser. But one did not really want to feel the pleasure in the first place, for heartbreak was never desired. The pleasure is not a pleasure outside of the pain, but only by comparison with the context.
In the same way, if you resent the Christian faith, the resentment is only pleasant as a relief from, or alternative to, self-surrender - because deep down, nobody really wants to surrender themselves, unless they are aware of the desire, the inherent and congenital desire, to do so. This is where faith is harmonised with reason. But all sensible people know that indignation can easily pass into exultant love; that the most primitive things can, given time, pass into feelings of preciousness. But if they are only contextual - contextual as in momentary relief from heartbreak - they are really the fluid that hopelessness bleeds when you cut it. Our reaction to God (and in particular those harsh Old Testament verses) are just the same. When you see God’s wrath and mercy in the Old Testament, they are really telling a much bigger picture than any of us realises. The same thing that turns people cold is the same thing that attempts to turn God’s punitive measures into mere analogical wrath. But we should be quite wrong if we thought that this does not apply to human life too, for we do it all the time. We are always turning selfish disappointments into analogical displeasure; we are constantly turning genuine emotional solicitude into progressive impersonal humanitarianism. The powerful blaze and the astounding beauty will both vanish if we do not properly separate human things from Divine things.
Once a man knows for the first time that he is a Christian he tends to wonder why it was so hard in the first place. Taking the final step seems so natural when it does finally occur that one wonders why the other steps (particularly the ninth) were so difficult. But one should not feel despondent if that question does arise - after all, so many things are done easily the moment we can do them at all. It took me quite a while to learn to swim as a child, but the second I mastered it, I could not for one second locate the difficulty I had in doing it. When you locate that desire within yourself, when you realise that you can find God, it is then that you will know you are looking for Him. But one stumbling block along the way is when we look through the stages of before and after. You cannot really want Heaven until you are ready for the whole journey - and there exists inside the human psyche the comfort in procrastination. You must have said to yourself ‘If all this is true, I’m sure I’ll be happy with my own salvation whenever it arrives’. But you cannot really think this way and remain true to yourself, because one’s need for salvation, although it is principally about one’s own relationship with God, also involves our friends, family and loved ones - those we could influence or who God’s wants to influence through us.
I do not, of course, mean to add extra pressure on anyone’s journey to salvation, but until those stuck on the ninth step (or eighth step, or seventh step, etc) are saved, others around them will miss out. This is what God meant when He said that children will be punished for the sins of their parents - not that God punishes by association, but that generations pass down secularity like mothers pass down their jewellery. Once I realised that God wanted not just me, but the influence I could have on others and the work He could do through me, the final step became so much easier – like a great army general calling his men into battle to save some souls from despair.
I do have much sympathy with anyone who cannot take that brave step and make that commitment to God, as I myself chose voluntarily to stay on the ninth step for a while. But the moment we do make that final step we realise how much we had been denying ourselves by staying one step back. What seems superficially pleasurable to us can only be kept in view by some form of hindering or thwarting effort, even if we stubbornly choose to overlook that fact at the time of procrastination. But although Christ’s truth offers us something far more substantial and glorious, how can this be realised if one is wedded to an earthly lifestyle?
The answer is easy once we see that deep down we all have the potential to realise that reality consists of something more than earthly pleasures – that Christ’s kingdom really is of another world; for it is those earthly pleasures and their transient feel that leave us dissatisfied and wanting more. If reality were only ever things which are impervious to irrationality then reality might be more rational, but it would have much less to say to us – we need the idiotic to go with the profound, we require some superficial simplicity with our sublimity, and for clarity’s sake we need human fault to accompany the best that is in us. Sometimes the truest things are the things that go against every instinctive feeling of rationality that we have. Thus sometimes we have to just let go of what is holding us back and take a leap of faith. If it is going to turn out to be the best decision we ever made, it won’t be very long before we realise it.
The views carried here are those of the author, not of Network Norwich and Norfolk, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users. We welcome your thoughts and comments, posted below, upon the ideas expressed here. You can also contact the author direct at james.knight@norfolk.gov.uk
James is a Norwich local government officer, author and Proclaimers church member in Norwich. You can access his current collections of columns here
Meanwhile, if you want to find out more about Christianity, visit: www.rejesus.co.uk |
