that old refrain
What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. … [T]he crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, and to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die. Of what use would it be to me to discover a so-called objective truth, to work through the philosophical systems… to be able to formulate the meaning of Christianity… if it had no deeper meaning for me and for my life?
I first encountered this quotation from Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals as a freshman in college. At the time, I was deeply troubled about a number of things, particularly my faith in God, or rather what I perceived as my lack of faith. I did not know how to reconcile an intellectual knowledge of Christianity with the reality of life as I had experienced it; I did not know how—or if—I could translate the concept of ‘belief’ from thought into action. But I found great comfort in Kierkegaard’s words, not because they provided the answer I was seeking, but because I recognized that Kierkegaard himself had been a seeker, a person who devoted himself completely to the working out of his salvation with fear and trembling.
Both Kierkegaard’s ideas and the way in which he expressed them resonated deeply with me then, and, nearly a decade later, I still find myself returning to them. I have traveled great distances—geographically, intellectually and spiritually—but for me, the essential question remains unchanged: How then shall I live? More to the point, how do I live my life such that it may be worthy of the gospel of Christ? In one respect, I believe the answer is complex, something that must be discovered bit by bit through a lifetime of reasoning, questioning and prayer. Yet as Kierkegaard points out, there comes a point when we must stop thinking and start doing. Doing what? That part Jesus made quite clear: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength; and your neighbor as yourself.”
Certainly a lifelong process… If we were fully sanctified at the time of conversion, there would be no reason to remain here, no need for the growth process in which we learn and act to become more Christlike.
For me, that process is often a struggle. Yes, we are to as He commands, but we are also to be what He commands. The struggle between my existence and purpose as a “human being versus a human-doing”.
As always, your insights hit the nail on the head. LYF
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