Take the Plunge

The next three weeks I will refer to an 18th Century writer named Søren Kierkegaard. He is best known as a philosopher, but he wrote many thoughtful things about the message of Jesus and the kingdom of God. He could write esoteric philosophical ideas, but he could also employ simple images and parables that communicated important spiritual truths.

One of the first of his stories that I read nearly forty years ago, described a man who wanted to understand swimming. Every day he went down to the sea to watch those in the water. He would carefully analyze their movements, make notes and use his knowledge of science to determine just what was causing them to stay afloat and move forward. He recorded many observations and wrote his conclusions for others to read. He believed that his description of swimming was one of the most technically accurate that one could find.

But, says, Kierkegaard, such a man really knows nothing of swimming, and he will not know anything of it until he himself plunges into the sea and commits his body to the water.

All around Kierkegaard saw people who were experts in languages and theology and could describe in great detail what Christianity was about. But, in his mind, these people did not know anything about the kingdom of God, because they had never plunged in and abandoned themselves to Jesus and his teaching.

And so Kierkegaard would encourage us to study and learn, but to take all that and charge by faith into the water. In terms we talk about here each week, no mind change really has any value until we believe the promises of God so much that we leave our comfort zone and take the plunge.

Focus Scriptures:

Hebrew 11: 8

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.

Hebrews 11:17-18

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." 19Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.

Hebrews 11: 24-26

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. 25He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.