LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Back to the Beginning (1)
When the Pharisees asked the Lord about divorce (Matthew 19), they did not suspect the vein of light they would open for future generations. In answering that question, the Lord showed some principles that can be applied even beyond the problems of marriage.
What prevented the Jews from knowing God's will for marriage was that they had as a reference the teaching of Moses, and not the original word of God. They went back to Deuteronomy 24 -which authorized repudiation- but were unable to go back to Genesis 2 - which shows the indissoluble unity of man and woman in marriage.
In this point lies the cause of many anomalous situations today in the midst of God's people, both personally and collectively. When we are afflicted with deteriorating situations, we go back to the past in search of solutions and answers, trying to find the point where our loss began, but we do not go back as far as we should.
Personally, when our spiritual life is drying up, weakening, we go back to some point in our faith history, but not to the beginning. An intermediate point is not able to help us, because it shows us with some degree of sufficiency, of our own merit. It was at the beginning - when we came to the Lord, or when the Lord found us - that we were truly bankrupt. Only then were we what we are in ourselves. Incapable, useless, defeated, shorn by the devil, "without hope and without God in the world".
When we came to the Lord, we were in the most absolute helplessness. Therefore, we were able to raise to him a pitiful look, like a hungry beggar; a desperate look, because hell was swallowing us up; an anxious look, because we no longer had the strength to go on enduring. And then God reached out and helped us. Our gratitude burst into tears, our lips kissed his feet, our humiliation and gratitude were a song of praise to God for so much grace received.
Later, however, with our conscience now clear, our sins forgiven, our broken dignity restored, our ego recovered, and we began to forget where God took us from. We feel strong, capable, sufficient, and so our misfortune begins to weave itself. The cause of our ills is some self-righteousness, some unjudged "hardness of heart", the scab that builds up on the soul, and makes it indifferent and proud. We come to think that we are enough for ourselves.
We have to go back to the beginning, to a consciousness of unworthiness of ourselves, of incapacity, of insolvency. We have to become children again, to recognize that we know nothing and can do nothing. We have to return to the attitude described in the beatitudes, to a heart hungry for God, and to poverty of spirit. Whenever we seek to remedy some form of deterioration, returning to Genesis and not to Deuteronomy is God's perfect will.