Creative Faith: A Reflection on Spurgeon
Faith is creative.
A mere three words, but seeing those Saturday morning as I read the morning portion of Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening stuck with me. I’m still thinking about them. I’m still thinking about the account in Luke of the sick man who was lowered through the roof so Jesus could heal him. I’m still thinking about the brazenness, the stupidity, and the callousness of what they did. On the surface, you have a bunch of jerks who couldn’t wait through the line, so the jumped up on a roof, destroyed property, and cut in front of so many people. I mean, who did these people think they were?!
Creative deviance
Sure, they cut a hole in a roof, but you can’t say these people weren’t brazen. You can’t say they weren’t bold. It takes a lot of guts and a heck of a lot of crazy to hoist a bed-ridden man up onto a roof. And this is just the kind of crazy Jesus respected. It’s the kind of crazy that doesn’t accept any obstacle as an excuse for failure. It’s the kind of crazy that doesn’t let anything stand between us and the Healer. In a certain light, doesn’t being creative make us a little crazy?
Creative faith isn’t malicious
As a means of disclaimer, I’m not promoting that anyone should routinely hack holes in others’ roofs. To be honest, the act itself seems a little extreme to me, but it’s important to note these men were not intending to hurt anyone and probably didn’t really want to destroy the roof in the first place, but I digress.
Creative faith overcomes
Creative faith is faith that is heavenbent (see what I did there?) on making Jesus our sole focus. Creative faith loves Him so much that it will always find a way to be with the object of its affection, its desire. Creative faith is ruthless in its love. At the same time, creative faith is bold in its tenderness. Creative faith knows no failure, because this faith will always find a way, even if it means exercising a little craziness in the pursuit.
And that’s the crux of the matter: creative faith doesn’t give up. Creative faith always finds another way. Creative faith is crazy. But it’s crazy because there are so few of us who are there. Yet, we could be there. Very simply could we fight today to take that first step. Today could be the day you venture toward a faith that no longer knows failure and defeat. Today could be the day where you begin to climb up the roof, because Jesus and being near to Him is just that important.