Too often, we regard faith as a
sort of hazy, misty abstraction rather than a practical discipline. In a
previous essay, “A Faith-Full Mind,” we explored scripture to seek a less
abstract conceptualization of faith. We worked through how faith saves and what
it means to live and walk by faith. In this essay, we’ll dig deeper into these
concepts, with an emphasis on practical application.
In “A Faith-Full Mind,” a central
theme that emerged was the role of the mind. Not only is faith a belief, but it
is also a state of mental focus. When we speak of mental focus, you may be
reminded of the concept of “mindfulness.”
In many conservative Christian circles there is a discomfort with practices
such as mindfulness because they are often associated with traditions like
Buddhism and other explicitly non-Christian religious and spiritual activities.
But at its core, mindfulness is simply a psychological practice of mental
focus. Most mindfulness practices direct that focus on the present moment,
often through directing attention to the physical senses. This often is paired
with a more passive awareness of mental phenomena, such as thoughts or
emotions; a classic approach invites the subject to imagine their thoughts and
emotions passing as clouds in the sky (as opposed to actively engaging them,
making judgments about them, or attempting to change them). Mindfulness—along
with related practices such as meditation, breathing-based relaxation, and
self-hypnosis—is associated with a number of mental and physical health
benefits, particularly in the realm of stress reduction. In a neurocognitive sense
what is occurring in these techniques is that we are taking advantage of the
fact that the brain can only truly focus on one thing at a time (multi-tasking
is essentially rapidly shifting attention across competing stimuli), and the
technique seeks to give the brain something that is at least neutral—and if
possible relaxing and restorative—to focus on.
We were created with a capacity for
focus, and when we are focused we function better mentally, emotionally, and
physically. This truth is helpful to consider as we continue to explore
practical applications of the biblical principle of living and walking by faith.
Sometimes when we reflect on concepts such as faith, there is a tendency to overspiritualize.
As we learned in the last essay, faith is our access point to spiritual and
supernatural realities, but faith as an action occurs in our minds.
Hebrews 12:2 directs us to keep our
eyes on Jesus. But what eyes? What does that mean? Do we need to carry around a
picture of Jesus and keep looking at it? (Actually, yes, sort of!) Consider the
following scriptures:
- Colossians 3:1-2: “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” [emphasis added]
- Philippians 4:8: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy—dwell on these things.” [emphasis added]
Harkening back to our discussion of
mindfulness, the highlighted phrases certainly are calling us to exercise the
mindfulness part of our brains in pursuit of spiritual realities. But how do we
know what the “things above” and “pure, lovely” and “commendable” things are?
Is it a gut feeling? This is where that “picture of Jesus” comes in.
- Psalm 119:11: “I have treasured your word in my heart that I might not sin against you."
- Joshua 1:8: “This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to meditate on it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do.”
We create and can “look at” an
internal picture of Jesus by reading, memorizing, and meditating on Scripture.
Another way to use the mind to walk
by faith is prayer. 1 Thess 5:16-18: “Rejoice always, pray constantly, give
thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you.” A few writers on
spiritual disciplines have described the core of their practice as being a sort
of ongoing prayer, a constant conversation with the Lord, which is dominated by
proclamations of gratitude and thanksgiving, but in which every single thought
is shared in an ongoing conversation with the Lord. A. W. Tozer has written in The Pursuit of God of turning one’s
internal eyes toward Christ who lives within. He notes that God is omnipresent,
he exists throughout every aspect of his creation, so failing to be aware of
God’s presence isn’t an absence of God’s presence, it’s a choosing to not be
aware of it, choosing to focus on something not-God.
So there is a mental discipline of
filling our thoughts with God’s thoughts, as revealed in his word, and of
engaging in an ongoing conversation with him through prayer. This is a moment-by-moment
focusing of the mind, an intentional and recursive directing our attention to
the indwelling Holy Spirit, who is our communication link to the Father and Son.
It’s vital we remember that Jesus defined eternal life as knowing God and
knowing Christ. We only know what they “look like” through his word. This is
why other spiritual disciplines such as Bible study and hearing the word
preached are so essential. If we’re “knowing” someone or something other than
what comes directly from the pages of scripture, there’s a real danger that we’re
worshiping a false god.
Most often this false god is some
version of our own natural desires. As we saw when we reviewed Romans 7 in “A
Faith-Full Mind,” those desires, that capacity for evil, are always right there
with us. If we haven’t trained our minds to recognize the true God, we’ll find
other gods within. Paul warns Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:8-12 of one such god. The
desire to be rich is just one example of a common, human desire, one that is ubiquitous
in our culture (and even our churches), but which can keep us from the ongoing,
intimate relationship with God that he created and then saved us for. When we
are turning our inward eyes to that which is within without training them to
recognize God and his Christ, we will make gods of any number of natural
desires, and will instead live according to what is right in our own eyes
(Proverbs 21:2; Judges 17:6).
When we are grounded in God’s truth
as revealed in his word, and we have believed what he says about us and our sin,
have received by faith Christ’s replacement sacrifice on our behalf, we can now
walk by faith. We do this by continuing to grow in wisdom and knowledge of God
through his word and then continually, moment by moment, turning our mental
focus toward him. This mental focus is the touchpoint at which the mundane
becomes the spiritual. When we are focused inwardly on this portrait of Christ
we’ve constructed from his word by meditating on memorized scripture, when we
are praying without ceasing in an ongoing prayer characterized by gratitude and
rejoicing, we are communing with him through the presence of his Holy Spirit
living within us. This is walking by faith.
Our focus so far has been on obtaining
a biblical picture of walking by faith and identifying the practical components
of living in that way. But there is also the subjective aspect of this way of
living. What follows are several images and metaphors for walking by faith.
Some of them have been given to us in the pages of the Bible. One is consistent
with biblical truth, but the allusion itself is not explicitly described in
scripture. But all represent another dimension of how we can use the mental
abilities God has given us to keep ourselves grounded in communion with him.
When I practice breathing-based
relaxation, I find that as I sit still and quiet and begin to execute the
mechanics of regulating my autonomic arousal, my mind often decides it’s time
to start wandering around looking for trouble (worrying, making plans, etc.). Needless
to say, if my mind is not engaged in the technique, I’m not going to get particularly
relaxed. So, my brain needs some sort of hook to pull it back when it wanders.
That can be as simple as returning my focus to the mechanics of the technique,
for example paying special attention to the air coming in through my nose and
filling up my lungs. But I find if I give myself something more involved and
more salient, such as a mental scene which taps into all of my senses, my attention
is held even more strongly, and I achieve a much deeper relaxation response.
In the same way, the following
metaphors have helped me not only conceptualize what it looks and feels like to
walk by faith, but they also give my mind rich and salient images upon which to
reflect, better holding my attention on the things of God. These metaphors also
help to illustrate the subjective, emotional aspects of walking by faith, what
walking by faith may feel like (or at least what it has felt like in my
experience).
Abiding. In John 15:4-5, Jesus says, “Remain in me, and I in you.
Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the
vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the
branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because
you can do nothing without me.” When I’m walking in faith, I feel connected to
Christ, just like the branch he describes. The only effort is just to keep the
end of my branch, the root of my branch, attached—mentally and spiritually—to
Christ. As I remain connected to him, things are happening through me that are
essentially effortless. For example, resisting temptation is much simpler.
Rather than fighting off the temptation directly, I turn my whole inner being
toward Christ, because the mind focused on Christ and his Spirit does not
gratify the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). Similarly, I don’t have to
try to synthesize joy; the joy flows from Christ’s trunk to my branch if I’m
connected to him, abiding in him, mentally and emotionally focused on and
engaged with him. The effort is put into remaining focused on him, everything
else flows out of that.
Light. 1 Thessalonians 5:5-8: “For you are all children of light
and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or the darkness. So
then, let us not sleep, like the rest, but let us stay awake and be
self-controlled. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk,
get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled
and put on the armor of faith and love, and a helmet of the hope of salvation.”
When I’m walking by faith, there is a heightened awareness of spiritual
darkness and spiritual light. For me, it feels kind of like that scene in “The
Matrix” when Neo suddenly can see through the system, and instead of the images
of people and objects and space, he sees the source code, strings of binary
everywhere. Emotionally, it’s very powerful. For one thing, there is no sense
of fear (I mean, I’m already dead [Galatians 2:20], so what can anything in the
world do to me?). For another, the people and problems we face every day become
transparent and their temporariness is apparent. There is a heightened sense of
the eternal. The person or problem in front of me is seen in the light of their
eternal worth before God, and I become much more attuned to opportunities to
bear eternal fruit.
Flow. There’s also a sense of flow in walking by faith. Jesus once
stood up in church and yelled, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and
drink. The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams
of living water flow from deep within him.” John goes on to add, “He said this
about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit.”
(John 7:37-39) When I’m walking in faith, there is a flow. I often think of the
Christian life as a stream. Saving faith gets you into the water. The stream
has a current that pulls you supernaturally toward God and his righteousness.
The current is slowest near the banks and grows stronger as you move toward the
center. The world and the old self are represented by the banks. I can be in
the stream (that is, have received salvation by faith), but be stuck in the
shallow, slow water by the bank. This is most often because I am clinging to
things on or from the bank, like branches hanging over the water, desires which
tempt me back toward the things of the world. But when I let go of those
things, I move, and the more I let go of—the less I am clinging to the desires
of the flesh or the cares of this temporary world—the more I am drawn toward
the center, where the current is the strongest.
Only the new self can exist in the
center of the stream. As the current begins to pull me more and more toward the
center, the more I become aware of the things I am clinging to of my old self.
The only way to continue toward the center of the stream is to keep letting go
of everything, literally every desire that is not for God and his
righteousness. Just as we saw in Romans 7, evil desires are always around,
hanging over the stream like branches from the shore, reminding me of what I am
leaving behind. In my walk as a follower of Christ, while I’ve experienced the
center current of the stream, I don’t spend as much time there as I’d like. Sometimes
I get distracted by and grab hold of a branch from the shore; sometimes I get
lost wallowing in the muddy shallows of the bank. But when I’m in the center of
the stream, God is continually showing me new currents which can pull me even
closer to him. These new currents require letting go of more desires, usually
smaller and smaller desires, things that when I was on the banks, or even in
the shallow water, I wouldn’t have even recognized as sinful.
Moving toward the center of the
flow is simple, as the main action required is simply letting go of things from
the shore and turning toward God at the center of the stream, replacing desires
for worldly things with thoughts and desires for God and his righteousness. But
it’s also very painful at times, because those desires are part of me, and
leaving them behind hurts. Often when God is actively drawing me more toward
the center of the stream, it comes with significant emotional pain. In my
experience, putting to death the desires of the flesh feels as vivid as it
sounds, a sort of emotional surgery in which I have tumorous growths cut out of
my skin and bones without any anesthesia. But at the end of the pain is a very
real—and very freeing—sense of having truly died, that literally the only life
I have is the one I have by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave
himself for me.
2 Corinthians
5:5-9 “So we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body
we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. In fact, we are
confident, and we would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the
Lord. Therefore, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to be
pleasing to him.”
Conclusion
There is a saving faith in which
salvation is received as we agree with God about our sinful state, confess our
need for a salvation that only he can provide, and believe in our heart and
mind and words (Romans 10:9-10) that Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf cleanses
us from all our unrighteousness. But faith is also a living, moment-by-moment
experience of turning our inward eyes toward God, by praying continually and
reading and memorizing and meditating on God’s word, so that his thoughts
replace our thoughts in a continual renewing of the mind. The byproduct of this
is the fruit of the Spirit; we know we’re not walking in the Spirit when our
focus is on satisfying our human desires.
I hope these thoughts have been
helpful. I pray for you, dear reader, this prayer that Paul prayed for the
Ephesians (Ephesians 3:16-19): “I pray that he may grant you, according to the
riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through
his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that
you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend
with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s
love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be
filled with all the fullness of God.”
