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.]