At a recent Eldership Meeting, the question was asked about whether, as the years pass, we Christians tend to lose the sense of excitement and exuberance that we might experience at the time of our conversion, and relax into matter-of-fact Christianity.
My first thought was that our conversion experience differs, sometimes quite significantly. For example, for some people, (e.g. those brought up in a Christian home) conversion is often-enough a fairly “quiet” experience. There is really no dramatic experience of life change and life goes on more-or-less as normal, and there may not be a strong sense of excitement or exuberance. For others, however, conversion is a dramatic, life-style-changing experience. Their life is transmogrified from experiencing the deep darkness of sin to experiencing the light of salvation in Christ. So, for them, there follows a strong sense of excitement and exuberance at the dramatic change that they have experienced. Personally, with my broken-home background and some of the implications of that on where I was heading in life, my conversion brought significant change, but I don’t recall expressing strong exuberance as I sought to understand my new-found faith and express it in worship and in service.
My second thought was to look back on my Christian pilgrimage and experience, in this particular context. A couple of things emerged from this process.
(i) First, in the context of my Christian faith, the older I’ve got the more questions I seem to have, although I’ve found the answer to many other questions that I’ve asked down through the years. At my present stage of life I’ve got many more questions, and there are many more things I don’t understand, even about the whole theology of faith, than when I was 28, or 38, or 48, or………..!
(ii) Second, I’m conscious of the more difficult and, in some cases, bruising experiences that have come my way. For example, even in my Christian employment, there have been some quite-hurtful things done to me (and to Sylvia) by people who should have known better. Whilst we’ve “weathered”, and come through, these experiences, they have left their mark, what I might term a “bruising of the heart”. The impact of these things does tend to dull any sense of excitement and exuberance, at least for a time, and does tend to have a progressively- dulling impact on your outlook.
The negative “side of the coin”, as I reflect on the above (and other) aspects of my Christian pilgrimage, is that they tend to create some sense of pensiveness, as you continue to try to faithfully live out the Christian life. There is a positive side to this “coin”, however. Firstly, you realize that the experiencing of these difficult and, in some cases, hurtful circumstances, and your response to them, is part of that testing and faith-building which is a life-long process. Secondly, the fact that, in life, you seem to experience a never-ending series of questions about things, and your faith theology in particular, actually deepens the degree of faith which is necessary if you are to “hold fast”, as you continue to walk the pathway of faith, in response to God’s call upon your life.
Perhaps the line in the hymn “ I Serve a Risen Saviour” helps sum it all up: “….And though my heart grows weary, I never will despair……..”.
Brian Good (31/5/12)
I can empathize with some of your thoughts here Brian. Some people experience tremendous highs (& many of these people also experience deep lows too) while others have a much more even 'experience' (and are very faithful) along the 'way'. The growth of faith often involves some rather bruising experiences.
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