God Speaks Through Intellectual Challenges
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:13)
I regularly challenge myself to read outside my comfort zone. God often speaks to us most loudly when we are uncomfortable. Reading philosophy has never been straightforward. It requires slow contemplation, and I am a hyper dude. Challenging focus, for hours, on complex ideas stretches my brain, expanding my ability to understand. To challenge myself, I recently started reading Think by Simon Blackburn. Think is an introduction to philosophy and guided my memory back to college philosophy classes.
Blackburn offered a single sentence that helped me understand why our humble mental striving remains significant for a profound faith life. Blackburn offers, “[Philosophy] has identified critical self-reflection with freedom, the idea being that only when we can see ourselves properly can we obtain control over the direction in which we would wish to move.” This sentence spoke to my heart and mind because it focused on the call to “see ourselves properly.”
In one quick moment of clarity, Blackburn helped me realize that the Bible is God’s way of helping us see ourselves properly. As people of faith, the Bible helps us understand the paradox that we are minuscule in God’s immense creation, and yet God has made us in the Godhead’s divine image. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. Yet, we will follow in the same resurrection of Jesus, the Son of the Almighty God. Apart from God, we are lower than dust but eternally affirmed and blessed with our Triune God.
Today, allow Blackburn’s philosophical sentence to speak to you. Prayerfully invite God to use Scripture, worship, prayer, and care to assist you in recognizing who you are as a child of God. Do not be turned off by complex thoughts. Instead, embrace them by trusting the Holy Spirit to enlighten your self-concept. The process of reflection will bring God closer to your understanding and, even more importantly, closer to your relationship with our Triune God. The more you challenge yourself, the more comfortable you become with thought-provoking reflections and the Spirit’s guidance.