Our Own Good

I'm starting to see the true value of intellect these days. That may sound like I've realized it's worth more than I'd thought but it's actually quite the opposite. Intellect is a good thing, but it should never be viewed as the greatest thing. I see now that intellect is quite dangerous when it's coveted above all else, especially humility. Before I get into this, I have to admit that I'll be discussing these two characteristics in extremes in order to distinguish their unique potential in our lives.

To say that intellect and humility are completely at odds with one another would be unfair. However, they do not naturally play well together. Intellect brings with it a sense of self-reliance while humility brings utter selflessness. Through our intellect we can begin to understand our universe, our surroundings, and ourselves. On the other hand, humility tells us that there is so much we will never know about the mysteries of this life and that it's OK to not know. The not knowing gnaws at our intellect day and night until we break or give into humility. Humility breeds joyful curiosity about our world while intellect develops prideful mistrust of the unknown.

Recently, I've seen intellect crush the spiritual life of a brother of mine. He studied psychology, philosophy, theology, and every other -ology you could possibly study. Over the past 4 years I watched him shape the spiritual life of many an up-and-coming christian youth. He drastically helped shape my faith as well. He knows his Bible inside and out, studied the life and teachings of Jesus thoroughly as well as the history and doctrine of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions. I thought if anyone's faith was rock solid it would be his, but I was wrong. I thought all his knowledge created an impenetrable wall around his spirit that Satan could never crack. All his knowledge may have fortified the mental side of his faith but it left his heart and soul wide open for attacks that crippled him over decades of spiritual warfare and neglect. I see now that knowledge only goes so far in our spiritual lives and once it goes too far it becomes even more difficult to adjust to the life Christ calls us to, a life saturated in humility.

In an age of information and tech-savvy youth, we learn at a very young age that we can learn to do just about anything by googling it on any electronic device attached to the internet. The problem is that we bring that mentality into our relationship with God and we begin to try and figure Him out instead of allowing God to reveal Himself to us. Having gone to a Christian University I've seen first hand kids who go from christian high schools, to christian colleges, to seminary, to working at a Church and all they know is how to prove the beliefs they learned in school. Oswald Chambers said it best, "When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God—it is only believing our belief about Him. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy."

I've been in some low places before where I demanded that God show up--either audibly, visually, or physically. I wanted Him there because I believed He should be there because that was the best way to handle my situation. I was sad, depressed, lonely and I believed I knew what God's correct response should be. I presumed to know better than the deity who created me because I had grown up reasoning my way through every spiritual dilemma, religious debate, and complex decision I'd ever encountered. Through these lows I learned that you can know everything about God and still not know God. I heard a pastor say once that if you just know everything about a person without knowing them, you're just a stalker. I'm sad to say that I've talked to far too many people who feel God is absent from their life when God is probably looking down at them saying "You're the one who is absent in mine!"

God is constantly seeking us out and we get fooled into thinking we are seeking Him merely because we constantly look to find out information about Him. I believe He's speaking to us constantly but we find it so difficult, so very unnatural to our character to put everything on hold and throw our lives up to God and say "Do with me what you will." We want to know God but we don't want to let Him dictate our lives so it feels like He's not interacting with us, or He's not there at all. Well He's there alright, we're just tuning Him out with the sound of our own prideful intellect telling us how to make every decision in our lives. I think it's far more beneficial for our personal lives, and our ministries as well, to actually know God than to know a ton about Him. I believe that happens through humility. A humility that genuinely desires to allow Christ to live through us and not vice-verse. In the Bible, the people God spoke to and interacted with the most were those who were truly humble. Just look at David for instance.

2 Samuel 6:16-22 depicts a scene where David is so giddy to have the Ark back in Jerusalem that he starts getting all footloose in the streets, so much so that he embarrasses his wife who scorns him for doing so. David's response is "Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this, even to be humiliated in my own eyes!." That's a statement that intellect would never comprehend. Are we willing to be humiliated in order to honor God? Are we so humble before God that we don't even care for social status and personal image? Maybe those are the things God is calling us to sacrifice in order to be with Him, but we're so entangled by intellectual pride that we can't accept a voice that tells us to do anything like that. All I know is that the more we lean on our own understanding, the more likely we are to miss out on the wonderfully divine plan God has for us.

Lastly, let me just say that I'm not advocating ignorance or that it's beneficial to be unintelligent. We should all study our faith like crazy so we know what we believe, but at the end of the day we can't hope to rely on our intellect to get us through the trails of this life. Somehow we have to merge all of the confidence we have in our mental capacities with a completely humble spirit before the Lord. Humility must be the essence of our lives, for how else will we ever attain the standard of love that God calls us to? The foundation of what Christ did for us was lowering Himself from a Godly form to a humanly form and then serving us in the most profound example of humility ever witnessed. It's crucial to remember that people don't worship Jesus for his intelligence, so they wont worship Him because of our intelligence either. They worship Him for His love--a love which is bound by humble service to mankind. So let's do the same.