I don’t think my mind is big enough, broad or bright enough, to be an effective apologist for the Christian faith. I turn often to the great apologists of the centuries, to Augustine, for example, to the best of C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, most recently to N. T. Wright, Tim Keller, and so many others. Up against the winds of severe skepticism, we want to defend our faith. We want to make sense of what we believe. We want to say what we believe in our age of unbelief.
But as I reflect, I realize my mind is always scurrying to catch up to the heart. It all starts with the heart, not with emotion so much, but with the deeper parts of who I am. In Psalm 42, for example, we find the mind trailing after the heart:
As a [deer] longs for the running streams,
so I long for you, my God.
I thirst for God, the living God;
when shall I come to appear in his presence?
It is that longing, that thirsting, that yearning that leads the way. It is that hoped-for taste of the living water that drives us to the running streams. We want to drink wholeheartedly. That’s where faith begins. Maybe we’ll figure it out later.
“All day long people ask me, ‘Where is your God’?” We know these attacks, this skepticism. Rampant skepticism drives us nuts. We want an answer, but the Psalmist doesn’t turn first to argument. Rather this Psalm insists, “I shall wait for God,” and
. . . I shall remember you
from the springs of Jordan and from the Hermons,
and from the hill of Mizar.
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your cataracts,
and all your waves, all your breakers, sweep over me.
“Deep calls to deep”! That matches my experience. There is ample distress in this poem, listening to the skepticism, searching for God, feeling the absence. But then “I shall remember” that deep calls to the depths of who I am. There is no claim here that I know how to be “deep,” but rather, at some point along the way, the deep called to my inner depth, called out from the roar of waterfalls, the breakers on the shore—they all “sweep over me.”
There’s no pinpointing how or when or where the deep will call. It may be in those breakers shining beneath a sunset. It may be in the eyes of someone we love. It may be, as it often is for me, in something that leaps off the page I am reading. When it happens, though, we know the deep has called to something deep within us. And that deep, the Psalmist reminds us, tells of God’s unfailing love. It is then that praise rises to my lips.
All of this before I start thinking. All of this before I start trying to give my defense. I have lived my life in the life of the mind, trying to find the reasons for this deep that has called into my deep. I have read and read and listened and listened to the most articulate voices of the ages. I have added layer on layer of reason, much of it so very helpful, none of it I will ever discard. But looking back, this was so often my mind trying to figure out what happened in the deepest of the heart.
“Pope Benedict,” Rod Dreher points out, “said that the greatest witness for the church is not its apologetics but the art it produces and its saints – the beautiful things that come out of its culture that reflect Christ and cause people to say, ‘God is in that.’” While I love the apologists and will continue to follow them intensely, I agree that the beautiful things that come out of this encounter with the living God, that is what will make the most sense to our post-rational world. Yes, we need to bear witness that we have been to the deep, and we have discovered
By day the Lord grants his unfailing love;
at night his praise is upon my lips,
a prayer to the God of my life.
From out of the deep, we come with praise on our lips, we come with God’s unfailing love—eager to share it all around.
Dear Phil. I was arrested by this one especially as I almost daily pray with the help of the Psalms as they emerge in the readings of the Iona Prayer Book. You are spot on for those of us engaged in the irresolvable issues of the world. It also recalled for me a recent spiritually deep offering in the NYTs by admirable “public intellectual” columnist David Brooks where he harkens to the wisdom of heroes Bonhoeffer, St. Benedict and healer President Gerald Ford. You and your readers might resonate with him as well in regard to appropriate political resistance. . I’m glad to be on your list. Brotherly, Tom
Phil, I so appreciate reading your inspirational writings, here on your blog, and refreshed with the truths. Our days together at PCHS must have indeed left an imprint on all of our lives for which I will be eternally grateful. May God continue to bless you abundantly as you serve and enrich many other lives.
A few years ago, my science-oriented daughter-in-law wondered how I could possibly believe in a God I couldn’t see when my normal approach to life is a rational, logical, and practical one. I was reminded that we are to have an answer when someone asks about our faith. I knew she seriously wanted to know my response. I ended up writing “a defense of my faith” with the title “A Synergy of Heart and Mind.” Regardless of my rational, logical, and practical bent, I notably began by writing that my Christian faith began in the heart, not in the mind. It was spawned by experiencing members of a very small church congregation who loved and nurtured me as a young boy. Their modeling of God’s love before me led me to hunger for the God they served.
Your thoughts trigger deep thoughts in myself and build upon ones needing to grow. I will be reminded throughout the day of how “deep calls to deep” and rest in the joy that image brings me.
Oh, the joy of seeing, sensing God in this or that, in him or her. God at work in the depths of a world gone too shallow.
I loved this Phil. It really spoke to me. “But looking back, this was so often my mind trying to figure out what happened in the deepest of the heart.” This is so true. And I love that you mention the difference between emotion and what for me is basically a…profound stirring. Thank you for these words.
Phil – your writing and expression continue to amaze and inspire us!! Thank you for your efforts and faithfulness to fulfill God’s calling! You are a true blessing!!
“Why? Why? Why?” seems the theme of the psalmist in this single song of 42-43. He does something that we should do when we experience the “despairs” of life. He talks to himself. That is good if we offer the best advice. Three times he repeats to himself, “Hope in God.” He is the source of our confidence for the future. The psalmist looks ahead and believes that once again he will lead others “in procession” (vs. 4) to the house of God. That is contingent on the fact that God is His help. The vicissitudes of life often descend on our souls as “waterfalls” and “breakers” that make it seem that God is at a distance. This song reminds me that when this occurs it is not God that has moved, but me. I say to myself, “God, You are my Help.” Like that deer looking for the water, I find my thirst quenched in Him.
Presently, I am studying the book of Nehemiah. Time and again he expressed to God his need for help. I do well to do the same.
Phil, keep up the good work! I enjoy reading your thoughts. Perhaps, one of these days we can have coffee.