For This Reason 24

[HKHaugan]

One of my projects as a novice sixteen year old worker trying to earn some money to continue my road travels was to climb up on a two story roof in the Hamptons on Long Island, N.Y. to replace some loose shingles. To get there I had to use an extension ladder and place it beneath the gutter, swing my leg over it and pull myself up on the roof. It was precarious to say the least but I did it, hauled some shingles up by rope and got the job done. However, what I didn’t count on was getting back down. Because of the roof’s pitch I was not able to see the top of the ladder beneath the eave and gutter. I’m asking myself, “How am I going to get down?” The boss had left me alone to go to another job. I lay down and hung my head over the side to see where the ladder was.

Two stories up, no one around to spot for me, I knew I had to do something so, spread eagled, I swung my leg around the same way I got up, slowly let it down while hanging waist bent over the gutter (knowing it wouldn’t hold me if I put all my weight on it), feeling with my toe for the ladder where I hoped it would be. I don’t remember praying, I think I did, but one thing I remember was the fear of falling as I ‘toe’d’ for the ladder. After several tries I just finally put my foot down as I was slipping and my foot caught the rung and I edged on to the ladder and finally got down. As I look back now I know it was God’s grace that helped me put my toe in the right place on that ladder as well as saving me in a number of other situations.

Much of what we do in every next moment of our daily experience is ‘toeing up’ hoping we’ll get it right. You might say it’s getting a ‘toe up’ on life. We’re all on a roof’s edge so to speak since every next moment is like the roof’s edge with its accompanying fears. But we have been given unique capacities as images of God to ‘toe up’ life. Three of these capacities in human individuality have a purpose, a designed purpose, enabling us to get the most out of who and what we are as persons---reason, awareness and sensitivity. All three operate in the mind, heart and spirit which are the image of God in us. All three are intended to be developed internally and all three find their fulfillment relationally. Due to human imperfection all three need a trustable external point of reference. Faith is the connecting point. All three have been honed to perfection in the person of Jesus which is why we accept Him by faith as that point of reference.

First, reason states and identifies what is seen. This is why we turn to Scripture. It is the God-given source for us to train our reason. “Our primary authority is Jesus Christ our Teacher and our Lord, and our submission to Scripture is only the logical outcome and necessary expression of our submission to him. It is to Christ that we come; but Christ sends us to a book. Not that the book to which he sends us is a dead and wooden letter, or an authoritarian ogre. He bids us listen rather to his own voice as he speaks to our particular situation by his Spirit and through his written Word (Authentic Christianity 1995 John Stott and Timothy Dudley-Smith).

Second, awareness opens us to the unseen reality behind what is seen. Jesus came to open us to His perfect awareness. It is an awareness of the spiritual dimension in both its good and evil aspects. It is specific, unique and designed for a personal relational experience called the Kingdom of God. Jesus is very clear in answering Nicodemus when he thought Jesus was talking about a second physical birth, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Jesus goes on to say in that passage that Light has come into the world and in John 8:12 He says He is that light and that when we are in a relationship with Him we are His light (Mt.5:14). Light is the awareness of Him as the “Aware One” in whose awareness of spirituality, the Kingdom of God, we become aware of what He brings out of the unseen dimension in each next moment. In Jesus our senses are opened to see spiritually what is taking place, hear spiritually what is behind words, feel spiritually the attitude and emotion motivating someone, taste spiritually the spiritual flavor of Scriptural truth in a situation and smell spiritually the aroma of the Holy Spirit’s momentary revelation. This is heightened awareness at its peak, a gift that takes us way beyond the distraction of worldly limitation. It thrives in Him, His Word and His Spirit as we open up that relationship meditating on what He teaches, how He acts and the honest response to the effects He generates in us.

Third, sensitivity enables us to experience and detail the spiritual reality within our awareness. Jesus gives us a remarkable illustration of reason/awareness/sensitivity abilities at work through His Spirit in John 4:10. He meets a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, engages her in a conversation that starts with His simple request for a drink of water. She immediately brings up their ethnic hostility which He uses to appeal to her reason, “If you knew (spiritual reason) the gift of God (the Holy Spirit) and who it is (spiritual awareness) that asks you for a drink (the Messiah) you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water (spiritual sensitivity).”

In vs.11-12 she reveals her spiritual vacancy, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water (secular reason)?” In vs.13-14 Jesus pushes her to see spiritual reality, “Everyone who drinks this water (Jacob’s well) will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water willing up to eternal life (spiritually fulfilled reason, awareness and sensitivity).”

To make these truths even more specific He demonstrated His spiritual depth when He asks her to go back and get her husband to which she responds honestly that she has no husband. Here in vs.16-18 is where His perfect sensitivity comes in, “You are right, the fact is you’ve had five husbands and the one you‘re living with now is not your husband. That’s true.” The woman’s awareness has been tapped and she senses He must at least be a prophet. But her reason still is ethnically limited as she tries to counter with the centers of their respective tribal worship, Mt. Gerezim and Jerusalem. Jesus replies that neither place will be the center since true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth (vs.21-24). It’s personal relational worship in the heart.

In vs.26 He identifies Himself as the Messiah upon which she hurries to tell her town the news and they all come to Him (vs.30). He has shown the truth (spiritual reason), the way (spiritual awareness of Him) and the life (detailed spiritual sensitivity) of relational living which is what the world needs so desperately.

Before Jesus all our faculties are limited but when we have faith in Him all those faculties begin to expand and find their fulfillment in Him. It is the transformation of our reason, awareness and sensitivity through the Scriptures by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is what the gift of the Holy Spirit is all about. Through faith He restores in us what we were intended to experience with our mind, our heart and our spirit.

This is what it means when we have been given spiritual gifts, the spiritual abilities to minister to one another, that bring growth for the mind through belief, awareness for the heart through trust and motivation for the spirit through faith. It’s what it means when we are blessed with the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience and a sound mind (Gal.5:22). Here is where Paul’s observation comes to bear when He says the three great qualities of God are faith, hope and love, the greatest of which is love (1Cor.13).

So, going back to my experience on that roof so many years ago, it replays a memory that returns to be the Spirit’s message to me for you. All of this is where we get a ‘toe up’ on the ladder of life.