The Point of Friction

It's been a rough 6 weeks at George Fox for me. I've been struggling to develop relationships, to delve into my engineering studies, to stay connected with friends at Hillsdale, to discern truth from error, to settle into a church. It has been extremely difficult, especially since this summer was so good. It was a very hard summer, but I tasted God's faithfulness almost daily and my spiritual life was thriving. But now, things are hard and it's difficult to see God's hand in anything. I have been striving for moral perfection and maturity, and I realized that it won't do me any good. I have been focusing on sins rather than sin. God won't love me because I am good. Sin is not an action, it's a state of being. We were all born with it and we can't get rid of it through simply avoiding sins (Romans 5:12-13), and even if we were morally perfect, we would still owe our lives to God. Instead, God provided a perfect high priest to atone for our state of sin: Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection (Hebrews 10:12-14).

After every time of exaltation we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they are where it is neither beautiful nor poetic nor thrilling. The height of the mountain top is measured by the drab drudgery of the valley; but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mount, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the sphere of humiliation that we find our true worth to God, that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at the heroic pitch because of the natural selfishness of our hearts, but God wants us at the drab commonplace pitch, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship to Him. Peter thought it would be a fine thing for them to remain on the mount, but Jesus Christ took the disciples down from the mount into the valley, the place where the meaning of the vision is explained."If Thou canst do any thing..."

It takes the valley of humiliation to root the scepticism out of us. Look back at your own experience, and you will find that until you learned Who Jesus was, you were a cunning skeptic about His power. When you were on the mount, you could believe anything, but what about the time when you were up against facts in the valley? You may be able to give a testimony to sanctification, but what about the thing that is a humiliation to you just now? The last time you were on the mount with God, you saw that all power in heaven and in earth belonged to Jesus - will you be skeptical now in the valley of humiliation?