Are we raising “small” Christians?
I’ve just begun reading a really great book by Gary Thomas called The Beautiful Fight. It’s about “surrendering to the transforming presence of God every day of your life,” especially the transforming part! Great read, people… Great read! He begins by recounting the story of Francis of Assisi coming across a victim of leprosy, one of the most feared diseases of its time.
“During my life of sin,” Francis wrote, “nothing disgusted me like seeing victims of leprosy.” Exuberant in his newfound faith and with joy flooding his soul – and remembering he was now to love and even treasure those things he formerly loathed – Francis chose not to run from the leper, as he would have done earlier in his life. Instead, he leaped from his horse, knelt in front of the leper, and proceeded to kiss the diseased white hand.
He kissed it.
Francis then further astonished the leper by giving him money. But even that wasn’t enough. No, Francis was determined to “drink great sweetness” from what he formerly loathed, so he jumped back on his horse and rode to a neighboring leper colony. Francis “begged their pardon for having so often despised them” and, after giving them money, refused to leave until he had kissed each one of them, joyfully receiving the touch of their pale, encrusted lips. Only then did Francis jump back on his horse to go on his way.
In that indelible moment, Francis’s faith became incarnate. His belief didn’t just inspire him; it transformed him.
Thomas continues…
Witnessing the dynamic witness of a young Francis,… I feel embarrassed at how small-minded we can be when discussing the Christian faith with young people today. The apostle Paul exalted life in Christ as the most exciting and compelling life anyone could choose. In a marvelous take on 2 Timothy 4:7 (MSG), Eugene Peterson recounts Paul telling Timothy, “This is the only race worth running.”
Today’s believers often lose touch with this sense of the glory of being a Christian. We settle for so little – a tame religion, a few rituals, maybe even an occasional miraculous answer to prayer – and so pass our lives without understanding our true identity in Christ, embracing our calling as God’s children, or fulfilling our divine purpose.
Is the Christianity taught today large enough to seize our hearts? Does its promise of transformation so compel us that we would give all we have to take hold of it?
The contemporary American church’s vision of “being a Christian” is anemic and not hardly compelling enough to call people to join in the beautiful fight of transformation into Christlike holiness. If you look at what we’re producing in our churches, you’d think we’re calling people to satisfaction in worldly values instead of God. Instead of “reducing our faith to a set of intellectual doctrines and a list of forbidden practices” (Thomas’ words), we desperately need to call our young people to a compelling vision of the Christian life. For the sake of the continuing witness of the gospel and our childrens’ souls, we must raise young Christians who will forego the values of hipness and security for the sake of the gospel calling of being a witness. Sell the RV and vacation home and cash in the 401K to model participation in something of far greater consequence than earthly gain! At the least we should be systematically and intentionally orienting our lives, families, and resources around Kingdom priorities. Your kids will FOREVER thank you.
Thomas concludes this section:
The ‘Beautiful Fight’ invites you to explore the depths of a truly transforming faith, an incarnational spirituality that doesn’t dwell merely on a list of prohibitions and forbidden sins but powerfully ushers us into something so precious, so profound, and so stirring that we would gladly give up all we have just to lay hold of it. It is what in our deepest longings we truly want to become.