Here's a passage written by J. Hudson Taylor which reminded me of the dojo scene in The Matrix, where Morpheus tries to raise Neo's perception of reality by saying, Stop Trying To Hit Me and HIT ME!I don't know that we are told anywhere in the Bible
to try to do anything.
'We must try to do the best we can,' is a very common expression; but I remember some years ago, after a remark of that kind, looking carefully through the New Testament to see under what circumstances the disciples were told to try to do anything.
I did not expect to find many instances, but I was surprised not to find any.
Then I went through the Old Testament, very carefully, and I could not find that the Lord had ever told Old Testament believers to try to do anything.
There were many commands that appeared impossible to obey, but they were all definite commands:
And I think we all need to set ourselves, not to try to obey our Lord as far as we can, but simply to obey Him.
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments:
and his commandments are not grievous.
1 John 5:3 KJV
Thank you for another profound post. I'll be thinking of this one in the days to come.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mr. Swindle. Deep stuff there. Like Yoda, "Do or do not do, there is no try." Or Mr. Miyagi, "Either do karate, yes, or do karate, no. You do karate, guess so, you get squished...just like grape." But what does that look like? How do you just do what is impossible to do. Through Christ, in whom all things are possible.
ReplyDeleteThank you, brother, for a reminder of the kind of life we are called to live.