Christian Growth

[An article by RBC Ministries President Mart De Haan]

This is an open letter addressed to someone who exists in the collective experience of people I’ve had the privilege of knowing and learning from over the years.

Dear Aaron,
I hope you are doing well. I miss our conversations about life, religion, and the Chicago Cubs. Even more, I regret that we haven’t kept in touch after your move to Philadelphia.
I’m writing now because time has changed my thoughts on a subject we used to disagree about, and I owe you an update.
Aaron, you used to say that “Church people aren’t better than anyone else; they just think they are. The best people I know never darken the door of a church.”
Even though I argued with you at the time, you helped me see that people who build hospitals, orphanages, and rescue missions in the name of Christ aren’t the only ones working for the benefit of humanity. I remember the letters to the editor you wrote, and the streets you walked, to protest the wrongs of racism, the evils of war, and the pollution of the environment.
Since the last time we talked, I’ve traveled enough internationally to see the hospitality and goodwill of people of non-Christian cultures. In other countries, as in our own, I’ve seen that a person doesn’t have to believe in Christ to be loving, gracious, and even heroic in the face of human need.
Such experiences over the years have reminded me of the disbelief I saw in your eyes when I talked to you about becoming “a new person in Christ.” I remember the questions you asked when I quoted the words of the apostle Paul, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” You told me you didn’t buy it, that you had grown up in the church, and knew firsthand that these were not people for whom all things had become new.
Well, Aaron, enough time has passed that I am able to understand more clearly what you were saying. Along the way I’ve seen enough in myself and in others to give me second thoughts about what I had said to you. Somewhere along the line I started asking questions: “If believing in Christ changes people’s hearts—why are His followers unable to sustain the “first love” and enthusiasm of their relationship with Christ? Why do so many eventually struggle with personal bitterness, church conflict, troubled marriages, investment scandals, anxiety disorders, and a whole spectrum of addictive behaviors? Why does faith in Christ produce changes that are more like the honeymoon phase of a marriage than a lasting change in life?
At this point, I admit that my spiritual journey has run parallel to what I’ve learned in marriage. What doesn’t change in either is the human baggage we bring into both. The independent inclinations that were a part of me before and after marriage were also a part of me before and after I put my faith in Christ. The self-centeredness that makes it difficult for me to hear the concerns of my wife also makes it hard for me to hear the voice of Christ living in me.
It took time for me to discover that in salvation and in marriage, growth and maturity would not come automatically or easily. In both cases, I was not prepared for what turned out to be the greatest challenges of my life. What I didn’t realize beforehand is that the biggest enemy I would ever face would be my own unchanged inclination toward self-centeredness.
I don’t mean to understate all the wonderful sides of marriage or conversion. But I can see now how wrong my expectations had been. I had looked to salvation to make me good, as I had looked to marriage to make me happy. I didn’t see that in both cases my own human nature would stack the deck against me if I didn’t do whatever it took to let the Spirit of Christ live His life in me.
Aaron, as I look back on some of our conversations, it’s clear that I was wrong in assuming that my whole life had changed through faith in Christ. It didn’t occur to me that whenever the Bible encourages us to love, or to pray, or to think and speak honestly, it is because we are so inclined to do just the opposite.
Yes, Aaron, my thinking has changed a lot since the last time we talked. Life has been a lot harder than I expected. Too often I have underestimated the diligence needed to let Christ make a difference in me.
I can now see more clearly that upon a couple’s public confession, a minister declares a man and woman married, but not mature. And, upon an individual’s faith in Christ, God declares us righteous in Christ, but not good in ourselves. In both cases there is a huge difference between the legal declaration and resulting quality of life.
I now believe that church people, in their best moments, have a lot in common with members of a 12-step recovery group. They attend meetings and work the program, not because they are better than others but because they know they need God and one another to overcome the problems that would ruin their lives.
I only wish, Aaron, that I had understood years ago why so many people like me reflect far more of ourselves than of who we are, and could be, in Him.
Thanks for listening. I’d love to know where you are in your own spiritual journey. If you are inclined, drop me a line, either by letter or e-mail. I hope you’ll find that I’m more ready to listen and less likely to defend the moral superiority of anyone other than the One who died for us.

Sincerely,Mart

[Back to Home]