Looking Back in Order to Look Forward

[HKHaugan]

“This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes (Ecc.7:29).” [“God made man simple but man complicated it.”}

Albeit a fact that it was my aloneness that drove the engine of my conformity I also needed a community I could trust and that accepted me for who I was and not what I was expected to be. In those anxiety-filled years of adolescence I know now that I was led by the Spirit to enter that Gothic structure far removed in sight and distance from my neighborhood. I would not have sought it on my own nor would I have thought it necessary. The need for friends to replace my Carolina buddies again drew me outside and I was asked to join the Boy Scouts, which I did, and by whom, I can’t remember. It met in a church as well. There were four other occasions that were identity oriented: joining Explorer Scouts, the high school training corps (a high school military group like ROTC) and the Victory Singers (a choral group) and buying cowboy boots with hard earned money to attend a rodeo so I could fit in to the crowd. They had uniforms that identified me.

All of this was just a start on a much longer road on which I felt the pull to fit in but at the same time another pull that would find my life absorbed in the institutional church, its conformity, its call for acceptance and obedience and its leaders accepting me into its ranks. Along the way to that more involved stronghold I was locked into a world of survival, hitchhiking from place to place, working odd jobs, learning the discipline the world demanded. It was another kind of education, another excursion entering the courts of the world and its false promises. All along the way I had a cover over me I would later understand as grace.

There is an old German saying, “We get too young old and too late smart.” Wisdom is found in two forms, God’s and man’s, the Spirit and the world’s. Each has its courts. But first, let’s look at the world’s wisdom and the courts it calls us into. The courts of the world are empowered by evil spirits that captivate the moment, look for immediate attention and seek only what gratifies the present. There is a distinct difference between evil spirits and the Holy Spirit. Evil spirits encourage the elevation of the alone self to act like it is a god. What results is you are on your own, vulnerable to any and all spirits outside of God. The result is the spirit of fear takes over and you are always looking over your shoulder to protect yourself against the unseen forces that motivate others (behold Genesis 3). This keeps you on edge wherever you go. You become a slave to the moment, to the attitudes and opinions of others, to the fears of what might be if you don’t fit in. The courts of the world offer you a false sense of belonging and control. Be it a teen-age gang or a corporate identity the end is still unresolved aloneness. Just ask the leaders in them.

Using the world’s wisdom and entering its courts consumes our concentration to the degree that the techniques of adaptability galvanize and become strongholds. What we call peer pressure is simply spiritual forces arrayed to attack at every level at any age where a weakness exists in the individual heart. That individual weakness is where the spirit of fear works in our hearts. Wherever we have a fear you will find a stronghold. That is where strongholds find their foundation. Strongholds are the schemes we develop apart from God to adapt to the world. The other word to describe them is attitude. Strongholds are attitudes.

All of us have ‘Achilles’ heels’ in some area or areas. We draw conclusions outside of God and His Word thinking we can control those areas (2Cor.10:5). We then hold on to those conclusions and strongholds, attitudes, are formed. Let's look at one.

Stubbornness comes to mind. What are the ideas we are stubborn about?. There is a difference between stubbornness and faith. One is based on fear the other on the living Lord's presence. Let's take a 'for instance.' We use the phrase common sense as though having it secures us as persons of wisdom. What it really is is a stronghold about control. It's about my need to be in control. So we make a conclusion apart from God that gives me the sense of being in control. But in control how? We use common sense. We rely on our human experience of having learned by trial and error how to control the pressure of the moments in which we find ourselves.

The questions only we can answer from within and be honest about are “Who and what is really in control of that moment?” and “Is it working for us?” Is it the fear of what might happen or is it reliance on the Holy Spirit and God's Word to speak or keep quiet? When we get past a moment of uncertainty are we glad we survived it or are we confident that what we said and did was right? It comes down to whether or not we were fearful or faithful. Was it pleasing to the Lord?

Life is a whole lot more than just knowing when to speak and when to keep quiet. Life is much more than momentary survival. Life is much more than stubbornly holding on to attitudes that keep you in continual suspense. Life is much more than my emotional drive in the moment. The more we conform to what we conclude apart from God, the more alone we feel. That's what make up the unbelieving world, the world Jesus loved and died and rose to save. What inevitably grates against our individual stubbornness is to face the truth that we are the ones being controlled and controlled by many things over which we have no power. The more alone we feel the more we look for something or someone to overcome it. This is the frustration that so many social movements are based on. Individuals whose minds and hearts need a vent to handle their frustrations. This is the source of rationalized morality and self-justifying behavior, sin on steroids. It's the stuff that contributes to a shared atmosphere inciting the relapse into riots, rebellion, scattered shootings and general social unrest.

How self-observant Paul was when he concluded that the good he wanted to do was impossible and the evil he didn’t want to do he found himself doing. How true it was when he identified what he suffered from was the spiritual disease of sin. How right he was when he realized the reality of Jesus and His call to serve Him, to let Him be the controller. How right God was when He saw Adam in the Garden and informed us, “It is not good for the man to be alone (Gen.2:18).” How clear it became to me I needed a spiritual relationship that brought my aloneness and my fear in spiritual perspective. Thank you Lord that I found I was never alone, never without protection and never without God. “The Lord is the stronghold of my life (Ps.27:1).”