Such A One

It is intriguing to me. I have thought about the young man who, walking down the street, happens to stumble and fall and skin his knee. The young man is now in pain and the knee is bruised and is starting to bleed violently. He gets up and begins to walk toward home. All of a sudden, another man follows behind him. This man has seen the man’s condition and is aware of his circumstances. Out of nowhere the man yells at the young man to hurry up and run. He begins to test his character and tell him if he does not run he is not only weak but is an embarrassment and should be ashamed of himself. The man shows no mercy, but hounds the young man until he finally falls down utterly discouraged at his own inability. The other man then walks away satisfied at what he has done. He feels no remorse or mercy for the other man’s failure. I would say that this man has done the other a disservice. I believe the right thing to do would have been at least to ignore him, at best to help him, and at most to carry him. It is a sad fact that this example directly parallels a Christian’s spiritual walk and the unbelievers view toward it.

The young man becomes a Christian (skins his knee) this is now the equivalent of a young Christian who will start on his spiritual journey of fighting his flesh (trying to walk on his skinned knee). The unbeliever sees his situation, has no compassion, and then begins to test the young Christian (hounding and harassing him). An unbeliever, as soon as he sees a young believer trying to live a Godly life, should at least get out of his way (at least ignore him) or at most encourage him (carrying him) but instead begins to jump behind him and test him without mercy. All along the young Christian is trying to do his best to go against his fallen nature. Some might say, “Yes… but the only difference is that the unbeliever does not know what it is like to be a Christian, so his testing is only natural.” I disagree. I believe we all know right from wrong (conscience). I believe even if someone is not a believer, that each and every one of us at some point has attempted to go against his fleshly nature and we all know how difficult it is. I believe that unbelievers know and understand the fight, but are simply not enlightened to fight. As such, they carnally chose not to engage or fight. They become discouraging toward believers because believers have decided to make the attempt to fight, rather than simply carnally giving into their flesh due to unbelief. We are too much like the other man who tested and discouraged the young man with the skinned knee. We see someone else trying to live the Christian life and we not only don’t stay out of the way, but we test and we hound. We do this because we have no compassion for the one fighting his flesh and attempting to serve God.

Next time we see a Christian attempting to live for God, instead of having an attitude against such a one, we ought to look upon him as the man who has just skinned his knee. He is going against his natural inclination, he is warring against his own nature, and it’s very easy for him to become discouraged in this situation. Instead of hounding and testing such a one, we should treat him as the wounded man; we should at least ignore him, at best show compassion for him and at most encourage him.