The Sesselbahn of Faith

I just recently finished an amazing book written by Hannah Hurnard called Hinds' Feet on High Places. This book is an amazing fictional story about a girl's journey to get to the High Places of the Lord in order to be completely transformed and taken to new heights of love, peace, joy and victory. The story reminds me of the importance of laying down my own will on a daily basis (if not on an minute to minute basis!!!) to trust the Lord, even when it doesn't make sense or when things aren't going the way I think they should. In doing so we soon see that the Lord's ways and will for us was right and perfect all along, and ultimately the only way truly go to the heights of the potential He has called us to. It really is such a powerful story with so many important lessons woven inside.

One thing in particular that I enjoyed about this book was Hannah Hurnard's own testimony in the back of the book describing all of the experiences and lessons which led her to write Hinds' Feet on High Places. I want to quote a good size portion of what she wrote because not only is it a beautiful revelation and description of faith, but I feel that we can all appreciate it, learn from it, and soak up any revelation received from it. In this passage she is talking about the lesson God taught her through a sesselbahn located on the mountain she was visiting in Switzerland. And because I had no idea what a sesselbahn was until I looked it up, it is basically a chair lift, although the one she describes seems to be much less modern.

"It seemed to me then, that the Sesselbahn was one of the loveliest and most fascinating pictures of faith imaginable. For faith has nothing to do with intellectual belief. Faith is obedience. Faith and abandonment to God's will and power are inseparable. Faith is willingness to do God's will. Unwillingness to abandon one's own will and to obey God is unbelief. There they were, those tiny chairs with no sides or backs--only a couple of bars. The cable by whose power they traveled overhead, and at great distance, was quite invisible. Underneath there was nothing but the abyss, and no earthly ground of support. All one saw was two moving chairs, apparently hanging in the air. But they were supported-from above! The power came from above, and by means of that power they were able to travel upward, in defiance of the law of gravity...One only had to be willing to trust the invisible power, sit down on a chair, and abandon oneself completely. No self-effort was possible. Then one would be wafted upward to the heights. It was all a matter of faith and no works-except for the initial work of choosing to abandon oneself to the Sesselbahn...How like that overhead cable the promises of God often seem to be. They look so appallingly frail and unsafe and without earthly support of any kind, apparently leading us to such impossible situations. It seems they certainly cannot be relied upon, for we tell ourselves how easily we may be mistaken and claim what was never meant for us personally, but for great courageous saints of God, prophets, and apostles. But once we abandon ourselves to these promises, and enter into them in the abandonment of faith and obedience, then all the overhead power begins to work. The traveler resting on and in the promise does nothing but remain in it. Having trusted the promise enough to risk everything upon it, up one goes! And no power on earth can hinder arrival at the consummation of the promise and its perfect fulfillment. Though we may seem to meet the most horrifying precipices confronting us, and abysses far below which we could never hope to ascend nor pass over in our own strength, yet in the spiritual Sesselbahn of faith and obedience, everyhing is triumphantly surmounted."

[Hurnard, Hannah. (1975). Hinds' Feet on High Places. Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers.]

Go ye.

Here is a quote from Juan Carlos Ortiz as he wrote referring to the church building in the book Disciple, "it will never again be a cave where believers hide from the world. Jesus never said, 'Sinners, come to the church.' He said, 'Believers, go into the world and make disciples.' The church sits in the pews and sings, 'Come home, come home/Ye who are weary, come home.' We should sing insteand, 'Go ye, go ye/Ye who are seated, go ye.' We have it all upside down. Sinners are dead, lost, deaf, blind. Yet we put up posters for the blind to read. If we can't mobilize the Christians who are supposed tobe alive, how can we ever hope to mobilize the unsaved?"

Wow, what a powerful impression this passage left on me. Interestingly, this book was written in the 1970's so it is incredible to see how relevant these words are for today. In fact, just in the past few weeks I happened to be attending a church service when all of the sudden a wave of saddness came over me. Worship had been going on so naturally I stood there trying to focus my thoughts and attention on worshipping the Lord but I just couldn't shake that overwhelming sense of saddness. I asked the Lord, "What is this? Why am I feeling this way when all I want to do is worship you?" I received an image in my mind of people standing in the church building in the middle of a worship setting and crying out to the Lord. It might sound nice but the thing was that all of these people were as if trying to suck all of they can out of the experience of being in the presence of the Lord and saying things like, "Oh Lord, I need you, woe is me, I have so many problems, just pour Yourself out over me..." Now, I know that we all go through times of struggling and needing to just cry out the the Lord for His help, but this was different. This scenario was of the body of Christ totally not living in the full potential that the Lord has called them to. Not only that, but there was no true worship or glorifying of God in this image. It was all about them and what they needed from Him. Instead of being a body of people who were first seeking the Kingdom of God, living and walking in the grace, power and annointing of the Holy Spirit, they were so desperately caught up in their own problems...a lot like the rest of the world. They couldn't see past their own situations or what was happening in the world around them to instead set their eyes upon the Lord and worship, praise, glorify and lift up His name!

The truth is that we have not been called to stay shut up in a building once a week to try and get as much encouragement as possible to get through the week until next service. But in many ways, this is how the body of Christ is now functioning. God is crying out for the attention of His people...We have to know that we have the Holy Spirit of the Almighty God, the King of Glory living in and through us and it should be evident in our lives. He is all we need, we have everything we need in Him. Instead of acting as if we don't and then need to suck everything out of the worship experience on a Sunday morning to last us until next Sunday, can we know that EVERYDAY He and all that comes from Him is living and active in our lives? Yes, we have the Holy Spirit and now we need to GO!

Too often we leave the "going" to those who are in "ministry." We so readily assume that to go out into the world to preach the gospel or to do missionary work is just someone else's ministry while the rest of us are just called to sit in a church service every Sunday and hopefully make an impact on the lives around us during the week. Well, in reality there is just one ministry and it is the ministry of Jesus Christ which, as part of the one and only body of Christ, we are all called to. But we cannot function to the full potential of the body of Christ if our buildings have become like hide outs or are the only place we come to "experience" God. God is so much bigger than that and being the body of Christ is so much more than that. He is breaking through barriers and mindsets, He is crushing our traditions and man made structures. He's got every area of our lives in His hands, He has already given us all of Himself and He is everything that we need, He is more than enough. Even when things seem difficult He is full of kindness, peace, mercy and love. His ways are perfect and the will He has for our lives is greater than anything we could imagine. Knowing that, can we bust through the walls of our caves giving praise to the King of Glory to answer the call for the Kingdom, "Go ye, go ye"...My answer is yes, what's yours?

vanilla.

I've been thinking about vanilla ice cream a lot lately.

Okay so when you think about vanilla ice cream, it is really the best type of ice cream to use when your going to make an amazing sundae. That is because vanilla is the perfect neutral flavor to enhance any topping you choose to put on it...it could be strawberries, oreos, caramel, apple pie...whatever! But there is nothing complicated about vanilla ice cream to take away from the delicious amazingness of whatever topping you choose to put on it.

In my relationship with God, I want to be like vanilla ice cream. Just as whatever topping that goes into a sundae with vanilla ice cream is glorified, I want God to be glorified through me. I want to be the vanilla ice cream so God can be the topping. When I think about simplicty, I think about something that is uncomplicated or not too confusing. Really, when you want to pick the perfect back drop for any kind of topping, you just wouldn't pick something like rocky road...there is just too much stuff going on there already. It gets things kinda complicated, right?! If we truly look with open eyes, we will see this happening all over the body of Christ, I definitely know that I see it in myself. I get so lost trying to figure things out or do things in my own strength that I totally make a discombobulated mess out of what God has already made so perfect. It is evident in our man made efforts, rules, traditions and institutions. We're trying to hand God a tub of Chunky Monkey and saying, "Hey look what I have, look what I can do, isn't this a great idea?!?!" when He just wants us to be His vanilla ice cream, ready to handle whatever topping He wants to pour down over us!

And the fact is that when we all stand before God, we are as simple as it gets, there isn't anything that He doesn't know or understand about us. But recently there has been something just screaming inside of me like never before for simplicity and humility in who I am so that what truly flows out of my life is not what comes from me, but what comes from the Holy Spirit.

I am not saying that our lives shouldn't be bold for Christ, that our lives shouldn't show a difference or that we shouldn't stand for the Kingdom of God, because that is all super important. But, it should be God standing out and being glorified through us, and this can only happen when we lay ourselves down to let Christ live through us. It can only happen if we are willing to be the vanilla ice cream for God's sundae! Mmmm...perfect in every way!