The experiences in life often determine our responses. It is these experiences that shape us, and sometimes, keep us going. Some of us are constantly engaged in a certain activity because we crave the experience that is gained out of it. Yet at times, we avoid a certain task or responsibility simply due to an unpleasant experience.
It is the same with faith. I remembered the countless times I was once engaged in discussions about how to stir the youths up to greater faith (this was with people who had Pentecostal inclinations). What was brought up every session was ‘They’ve got to experience God for themselves.’ There is certain truth to this statement, though I would disagree with how many would define experience and place a great emphasis on that particular kind of experience. Fundamentalists, on the other hand, would shun experience altogether and stress on the sole need of cognitively understanding doctrines. There is a temptation to seek an equilibrium between both ends, but will that be enough to sustain us in our walk with Jesus Christ?
The most fundamental experience of any Christian experience would be grace. Yet there are varied ways by which we perceive how this grace affects us. Some define grace in terms of how God would help us through a struggle. For younger kids, they see it in terms of how they managed to score an A in their tests. Perhaps for those, who like me have sold four years of our lives to the unthinkable horrors of dental school, see grace in terms of how God helps us to achieve the seemingly unachievable. And if you were struggling hard to gain that increment or promotion, grace to you would be how you finally got that letter from your boss. Or if you were serving in church, God’s grace would help you achieve much success in ministry, perhaps having run that Christmas musical so perfectly or having numbers rise exponentially. And if you were battling with terminal cancer, grace to you would be how God would heal you. These manifestations of grace are not wrong in themselves, God does indeed provide, strengthen and heal. But when grace is defined solely as such, then grace would not be able to sustain our faith, not because grace is not sufficient, but because of our weak-willed self.
What we need to fall back on is a more theologically robust experience of grace. We need to go beyond just collecting little trinkets of grace along the journey to daily rediscovering what grace has achieved for us. The only experience that can truly sustain us in the long haul is sin. I am not suggesting that in order to be an effective Christian, we have to actively be engaged in sin. Far from that. The Apostle Paul explains it best in his rhetoric, ‘What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?’ (Rom 6:1-2). Rather, it is a daily awareness of our sinful estate that reminds us of the great grace we have received from God in Jesus Christ. We can only be led to the Cross of grace when we are aware of our depravity, a realisation of how helpless we are about our woeful state.
Sure the Christian life is filled with many other experiences, but unless we have experienced our own sinfulness, there is no way by which we can daily cling on to Jesus Christ. The experiences we are prone to seek are the seemingly tangible signs and wonders. People have told me how God spoke to them about a certain issue. Some have insisted about the reality of God because of a vision they had during a particular service. And very often, many claim to have experienced God during that powerful time of worship during service. Yet time and time again, I see how these experiences have failed to sustain their walk with God.
Yet so often, contemporary Christianity focus on what the Gospel has to offer in terms of tangible things. People speak of ‘creating an experience’. An evangelistic rally is not complete without a few occurrences of deliverance and healing. But is that what the Gospel really is about? Did Christ really come just to perform all that?
I do not deny that God can heal, physically provide and emotionally comfort, but if those experiences become the very basis of our faith, then I think we have got it all wrong. It is important that we remember the reason for which Christ came for. Christ came as the solution for our sin. Christ came to remove the curse of sin and to restore us back in communion with the living God. And if Christ came for our sins, then it also follows that the only means by which we come to Him is when we realise our woeful states. It is only when we are reminded about the helpless state we are in and what He has done that we can fully celebrate the deep grace we have received from God.
What we have to remember is that the physical struggles we face in our daily lives with health, the emotional torments of pain and hurt, the burdensome toil of work are all just the resulting ripples of sin. It would follow well that if Christ came to restore, He would also heal and physically provide our daily sustenance. But we must remember first and foremost that Christ came to deal with sin, and not the symptomatic relief of sin’s effects. If we were to experience those experiences, we have to see it as a foretaste of what is to come, not to be distracted by them thinking that it is that which defines the Christian experience, but that there will come a day when a complete restoration and redemption will be achieved in Jesus Christ.
God’s grace is not about helping us achieve something, but it is about what Jesus has achieved on the Cross. We would never be satisfied or content if we were to view grace as something that helps us with our next task. When we have finally reached base camp, we rush to scale the peak. The previous experience of what we claimed to be God’s grace does not seem to be enough for us as our hearts lusts for yet another achievement or emotional exhilaration. The only way we can find rest and sustenance, is to rekindle what grace truly is, to be daily reminded of our wretched state and the incredible richness of His grace found in Jesus Christ.
This was a lesson I have come to learn over the past couple of months. Though I may cognitively understand what grace was, yet I was blinded from the reality of my sinful state. My mind knew what grace was, yet my heart did not feel it. I felt pretty lost after moving on to a new church. Life felt pretty plain and joyless. When I thought about what was going on, I felt bored because I was no longer doing anything. I no longer had those experiences I used to when I was serving in ministry, and there was nothing left for me to achieve. And I started to question what I really believed in. It seemed to me that my so-called Christian life was defined by my works, and deep down, I could not comprehend what grace was. Cognitively I could understand what grace was, but experientially, I did not seem to need that grace.
It was only a couple of weeks ago that I came to see my need for grace. It happened when I was treating some patients in school. I had a patient who had to leave early one day. He did not tell me beforehand, so it meant that I was not able to complete what I had to do for him. It meant that I had to fork out an extra session, from my already limited schedule, to complete my treatment. I kept thinking about what I had to do and as a result, released him late.
I have some difficult patients. I really do not enjoy treating them as they are very demanding and unappreciative. They demand things that are not feasible. They know that I am undergoing training and would be slow in my delivery of treatment. And they keep complaining about the speed every session, yet refusing to visit a regular dentist because of cost. I have my ways of dealing with such patients. And at the end of each session, I pride myself in overcoming them.
But when I reflect upon my behaviour and attitude in the clinics, I start to see how selfish I was. I cared more about my own schedule and requirements rather than my patient. I have insidiously prided myself in being more difficult to my patients than they were to me. It was when I saw my selfish nature that I realised my need for God. I saw that I wanted to be king in my own world and have others be subject to me. All things had to be suited to my liking rather than me serving them. It was then that I realised how sinful I truly am. It was then that I realised what grace is and how we all need Christ to be King and Lord over all.
And this is what sustains me. It is not about the past experiences I have, for I am prone to forget what they were, and many of them seem insignificant to me when I’ve scaled the heights and have experienced what I perceive to be of more importance. My heart is forever restless and would never be stilled by a fleeting moment of ecstasy. What sustains me is not about how God may or may not help me with accomplishing my requirements in school, the future lifestyle I could afford, or a pain-free life, for such things are fleeting and momentary.
We tend to chase many different kinds of experiences. Some of us desire that emotional exhilaration during the worship service. Some desire the experience of signs and wonder. But there is only one truly important experience in the Christian life. What sustains me and keeps me close to Him is the experience of sin. For it is only when the Holy Spirit convicts me of sin, that I can truly experience what grace is, and forever live a life in gratitude to the One who hung on the Cross. It is a conscious awareness and experience of sin that truly keeps me to the Cross of Jesus and my desperate need for Him.
