Walking Lamely

Upon the recommendation of my friend M.K. Lindsey, I recently have picked up the book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell. I have been struck largely by the way Bell presents his questions and musings on his journey through the Christian life. Mostly, I’ve been blessed by his writing style – I feel as if I’m sitting with him and a few others over coffee in some trendy coffee establishment engaging around the ideas he offers for discussion.

This morning stumbled across this thought he posed:

Binding and loosing [see Matt. 16:19; 18:18-20] can only be done if communities are willing to wrestle. The ultimate display of our respect for the sacred words of God is that we are willing to wade in and struggle with the text – the good parts, the hard-to-understand parts, the parts we wish weren’t there….The rabbis have a metaphor for this wrestling with the text: The story of Jacob wrestling with the angel in Genesis 32. He struggles, and it is exhausting and tiring, and in the end his hip is injured. It hurts. And he walks away limping.

Because when you wrestle with the text, you walk away limping.

And some people have no limp, because they haven’t wrestled. But the ones limping have had an experience with the living God. (68-69)

It was a picture that gave me courage. Mostly because I think I can often find myself in a Christian culture that unknowingly promotes that the opposite is true: It’s our job as believers to have God all figured out. I am not factoring myself out of the mix – rather, it’s seeing this very thinking in my own journey that has left me pondering why I feel the need to explain those things about God that really are often unexplainable.

Why is this my job? Why am I at times uncomfortable with what I don’t know about Him? Why do I feel that I have to have Him all figured out? Am I trying to gain a knowledge of Him for the praise of men or the praise of Him (Gal.1:10)? Why can’t there sometimes be unanswered questions…and yet, still the firm belief that He is in control and that He’s good (Heb. 11:6)?

Living with a spiritual handicap isn’t at times acceptable for many in the ministry scene. But over the years I’m realizing how vital it is to live openly with one and I appreciate Bell’s picture here. Letting others see the limp in our walk is not weakness but strength. It reminds me of some conclusions that Paul had come to as well:

Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may reside in me. So because of Christ, I am pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in catastrophes, in persecutions, and in pressures. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:7b-10)

So, today may I boast in the journey – boasting in what I know to be true about Him and yet walking lamely as one who is wrestling with what she doesn’t understand and rejoicing openly in the great mystery of the One who wants to live and be exalted in my life through faith…