Finding Balance

Living the Christian life can be a lot like walking a tightrope. Like most tightrope walkers, we know the path fairly well, we know how we should walk the path, what will cause us to fall, and how to get by without looking like a moron. While all of these are important to have in our faith, most of us don't have the one thing that all tightrope walkers need in order to keep from falling: balance. Tightrope walkers use a balance beam to keep steady and to guide thier steps, as they struggle to not look down constantly. Christians fall because of their lack of balance; balance between acting out of pure faith and acting out of reason and knowledge. I'm not saying that acting out of faith always means a lack of reason, but it's usually the case that faith requires defying logic and believing that God is guiding us.

Confused yet? I'll try to break it down. Let's look at the life of Peter. Peter, im my opinion, is Everyman. If I lived, walked and talked with Jesus, I would be the one rejecting Him, rebuking Him, and falling into the water because of my lack of faith. Peter constantly fights between acting out of faith and not knowing just what that faith means, and acting from logic without having the faith to believe in what he is doing. I like Peter because regardless of how many stupid ignorant mistakes he makes, Christ restores him and uses Peter to set up His Church. Peter makes an amazing comment near the end of his life in 2 Peter 1:5-11 in which he states: So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. 6 Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. 7 Godliness leads to love for other Christians,* and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. 8 The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin.
10 So, dear brothers and sisters,* work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Doing this, you will never stumble or fall away. 11 And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This is the end result of a life of balance. I'm giving away the ending, or to look at it another way, I am giving you the picture on the front of the puzzle box before putting the pieces together. Peter, near the end of his life, finally seems to get it. But in the Gospels, we see that the journey to finally get it is one marked with mistakes and failures. I want to break those down:

1) Peter has faith, but doesn't realize what that faith truly entails.
We see in Matthew 16:13 that Jesus is asking His disciples who people are saying He is. They repond with answers such as John the Baptist or Elijah, but it is here that Peter makes an amazing comment of faith. He states to Jesus that "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." (Matt. 16:16) Peter's comment shows great faith, but we see that just 5 verses later, Jesus begins to tell His disciples of his impending death and resurrection when Peter rebukes Him! This shows that Peter did not truly understand his faith, and that this lack of knowledge led him to believe something about Christ that was not true.

How many times do we do this? I would venture to say that for most of us, we have made a decision based solely on trusting God. What happens if that decision does not turn out well for us? We usually blame God. While I believe that action out of faith is important, I also sternly believe that we must have some knowledge and reason involved in our decision process.

2) Peter acts out of reason and knowledge, but his faith is lacking.
There is one main time in Peter's life where it is obvious that he is lacking in faith, and listening to pure reason. This time comes when Christ is walking on the water. Peter calls out to him and says "Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you by walking on water." (Matt. 14:28) Christ tells him to come, and when Peter steps out onto the water, he becomes aware of how high the waves are. It is at this point that he falls into the water. Jesus saves him and states "You don't have much faith," (14:31). Peter's call to Jesus was a call to "prove that you are Christ". He wanted to know logically that this was Jesus. It was his lack of faith that caused him to fall.

While we may hear this sermon, I think that the fact that Peter acted out of reason is usually neglected in place of "how much faith do you have?" While this is a valid point, I think we must consider that Peter had faith, but instead relied on his knowledge and reason rather than his faith.

OK, so maybe you agree with me and maybe you don't. For those of you that do, what now right? I think the first thing to do is assess yourself. What camp do you act primarily out of? I'll be honest. I act out of reason much more than faith. I trust in what I see, hear, and know rather than what is unknown to me. Once we know this, we need to challenge ourselves to act more out of our weakness. Step out in faith, if thats your weakness. Or study Theology, Orthodoxy, and find out why you believe what you believe, if logic and reason is what you neglect.

We have all of the tools to know the "tightrope". Instead of focusing so much on how not to fall, we need to focus more on how to be balanced, which is the starting point of our walk. To get back to 2 Peter, his statements close this nicely, as he states that your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. 6 Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. 7 Godliness leads to love for other Christians,* and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. 8 The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8). We see by his statements that faith and knowledge are the starting points, not the building blocks. Doing this, according to Peter, you will never stumble or fall away. 11 And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (1:10-11) That's the hope of tightrope walkers, and of Christians.