“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding” (Prov. 3:5).
“Stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; and in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Phil. 1:27-29).
There are recognizable strengths in careful analysis, but the outcome of nothing but analysis can certainly become our undoing. The distillation of the enormous, mind-boggling amounts of data available through today’s information highway can be extremely helpful and yet in this lies a very present danger. The analyzing of information into a rational form may cause us to believe that our expended labor has been a worthy investment.
The entire world can now analyze and rationalize almost everything via the worldwide web. Now only the unfortunate, the poor and the lazy are exempt from wading into the dizzying amounts of available information. The real danger is just here, for so many through occupation with objective information alone miss entirely the great subjective world of real experiences and emotions that the majority of mankind inhabit. The person who continually escapes into the cyberworld may lose touch, and actually grow to fear human interaction.
It can certainly be an advantage to analyze issues at hand, but when it has a paralyzing effect relative to the world of faith, then objective, intellectual rigor becomes a definite hindrance to the Christian life. “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). The purveying of mere facts and figures, when enmeshed with the arrogance of a quick yet solely rational mind, becomes a danger and a hindrance to trust and confidence in God.
So many of our beloved yet unsaved family members and friends on the Broad Way are trapped amid the restless sea of lost humanity. As Frank Knox said, “It is a paralysis of the mind that you are not saved.” The first group mentioned as having a part in the lake of fire are “the fearful” (Rev. 21:8)! It is in matters relative to God, His salvation, His grace and mercy, that God-fearing people feel so passionately and subjectively, because through faith they have refused to be paralyzed by the fear of man, the fear of the future, even by the fear of death itself. We ought to be alert and on guard lest that fear of man paralyze us. “The fear of man bringeth a snare” (Prov. 29:25).
We realize the spiritual nature of all paralyzing fear only when we have actually conquered it. In this regard the Christian says, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:13). The believer is here saying that it is Christ, His life and power, that gives the trusting saint the victory. The analyzing mind is paralyzed by the thought, “But, what if…?” The mind and heart of faith says, “But God!”
The great difference that marks the life of a believer is that the heart and mind of faith continually bring God into every equation. When we have a clear word from God, all speculation and hypothetical reasoning can only result in unnecessary analysis that paralyses the heart and mind. There is also an analytical ponderosity that initially passes for wisdom. Observation of its fruit, however, makes it clearly evident that it is but a barren, faithless activity that has analyzed itself to death.
As we encounter daily this pseudo-wisdom and all terrorizing onslaughts of fear with real confidence in the Lord, each anxiety can become a catalyst to strengthen us to a prayerful confidence and an unqualified trust and dependence on the Lord and His Word. The result should be, “Let us go forward focused on Him, trusting not our analysis but God!”
John A. Short
[email protected]
Christian Book Room P.O. Box 95413, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR of CHINA