Now one might think that I was enjoying my daughters pleasure in our excursion to the park. Or perhaps one might think that it was a little fatherly pride in the hearty, victorious laughter that she enjoyed upon completing each successful trip across. But in either case, one would be giving me too much credit.
My grin was one of pleasure with myself, part of the continuous stream of self-approval that we humans like to give ourselves. Yes, you may pause in your reading to pray with me against my pride, but please continue. It gets better.
You see, I was pleased with myself because on our previous trip to the same park, I had been teaching my four year old daughter some first semester college physics, mechanics to be precise. She had been attempting to cross the same bridge slowly, cautiously—and without much success. So I had advised her to increase her primary vector.
I had explained to her how vectors have both direction and speed, and that the bridge was adding horizontal and vertical vectors to her forward vector. So, if she wanted to maintain her balance, she should increase the speed of her forward vector, that the addition of the others would not change the cumulative vector by much.
To put it differently, build your forward momentum(mv), and the significance of applying horizontal or vertical momentum will diminish. Upon the end of our impromptu class, I summed it up: the faster you get yourself going and keep going, the easier it will be for you to get across the bridge.
And there she was, two weeks later, applying her well-learned physics lesson. And there I was, two weeks later, crediting myself with the title “instructor of Applied Mechanics” and wondering whether it would be a bit of a stretch to add it to my resume.
Pride is a hard thing to kill. Like other sins, it attacks from every direction, often giving a pretty good jolt in that direction. And as I realized what was happening to me, I came to think that what is true of physical vectors is true of spiritual vectors as well.
Life is full of those spiritual bridges, where sin or temptation of one sort or another jolt you side to side or up and down. The more speed you maintain in a forward direction spiritually, the less impact these jolts will have upon your overall vector when they come.
To put it in words that a four year old understands and remembers: the faster you get yourself going and keep going spiritually, the easier it will be for you to get through moments where sin threatens to waylay you.
Don’t ease into a program of ending some sin, planning to “cut back” carefully and cautiously. Like my daughter’s first cautious attempts at the bridge, that is a recipe for disaster. There is some truth to the “crawl before you walk” analogy of spiritual maturing, but watch an 8 month old crawl sometime: they put their whole being into it.
It’s no wonder that the Bible uses such vigorous language to describe how we should approach spiritual growth, and particularly how we are to engage our sin: words such as strive, struggle, fight, wrestle, kill, run, pursue, beat up, etc.
So, how are things with you, spiritually? Are you moving timidly and hesitantly while calling it “caution” or “being careful”? Or perhaps you have ceased to move forward altogether. Learn the lesson of the four year old on the bridge at the park.
Get yourself a full head of steam and rush forward all at once. Or as someone else (read: God through Paul) has put it: forget what is behind, strain forward to what is ahead, and press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Increase your primary vector.
