Steve Cuss hosts the “Being Human” podcast with Christianity
Today, and he’s also recently published The
Expectation Gap: The Tiny, Vast Space between Our Beliefs & Experience of
God. It is thought-provoking reading. In chapter 7 he addresses some of our
faulty assumptions about our progress in our faith. He writes:
“ASSUMPTION: We read these Bible stories multiple times and forget that many of these experiences happened only once to a particular person. We carry the pressure to live out that one story in our lives all the time. REALITY: Seeing these stories as points in time rather than for all time can help us relax into human-sized expectation…
“ASSUMPTION: One week we need to be like Peter. The next week we need to be like Mary. It all depends on what story we are reading that week. REALITY: Peter was pretty much always like Peter. Mary was very Maryesque. You are you, and I am me. We will get further in our faith if we accept our humanity than if we always strive to be someone or something we can never be… Over time, we end up stacking all of these people with all of their unique traits and examples into one fictional super-disciple that none of us will ever be and, frankly, none of them were either.”
You’ve probably experienced something like that. We hear a
sermon about Mary and Martha and we think we need to spend all our time sitting
at Jesus’s feet in devotion. Yet if we all did that we’d miss a lot of meals!
We think we need to be like Peter when he preached fearlessly, yet there were
also a number of times he stuck his foot in his mouth and once when he needed a
life vest. Each of Jesus’s followers had their ups and downs, and we are no
different.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in Discipleship:
“Scripture does not present us with a collection of Christian types to be imitated according to our own choice. Rather, in every passage it proclaims to us the one Jesus Christ. It is him alone whom I ought to hear. He is one and the same everywhere” (Reader’s edition, ch. 8).
I’m reminded of the old song “Dare to Be a Daniel.” While it
is true we all need courage to stand firm in our faith, we don’t need to be
another Daniel or Noah or Moses. God already used them for His purposes in their
own time. (Incidentally, when I was on the last hymnal committee for my denomination,
I strongly suggested that Rahab should not be included in the list of possible
names to use in that song, as she was in one hymnal.)
This subject recurs in my writing occasionally, and that’s
probably because I’ve spent so much of my life trying to be someone I’m not.
God has to remind me periodically that I am exactly who He
made me to be, and He never expects me to be someone else. With that I will be
content (at least until the next time I get distracted).
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of
witnesses [from Bible times till now], let us also lay aside every weight [and
false assumptions], and sin which clings to closely, and let us [each] run with
endurance the race that is set before us [not someone else’s race]” (Heb.
12:1).
© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.
