Ten Tent Pegs: 3 Conversion

In Tent Peg 2: A Cortege, we looked at what is known as Jabez prayer, and the way in which he came to faith and followed God.  Here, we see how conversion begins.

“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3

Something I’ve learned, over the years, is that I don’t need to possess great wisdom or maturity to have vision, or to have it enlarged. There is no evidence that Jabez had any learning, but when I look again at his prayer, it’s clear that God is at the centre of it (line three of five), and that he – not the vision – is Jabez’ point of focus.

God had made a Covenant, or contract, with his people and, in line with Jewish tradition, Jabez would have been brought up in the faith since birth, with daily prayers, ritual and instruction an intrinsic part of his childhood. This is not to say, however, that faith or vision are the result of a lack of intelligence or maturity – though some would have you think so!

“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence,” says scientist and atheist, Richard Dawkins - with staggering arrogance, given that there are many scientists who do believe in a Creator God! *

What atheism fails to understand, or accept, is that science and information technology have never possessed all of the answers. An internet joke that was doing the rounds a year or two ago summed this up admirably.

“God is now obsolete,” said an atheist, citing man’s prowess in creating life in a test tube.

Challenged to prove his point, he was asked, by a Christian, to give a demonstration. Undeterred, the atheist stooped to pick up a handful of earth.

“Oh, no!” said the Christian. “You have to make your own dirt!”

Science, in my understanding, merely explains how God made the world; it does not do away with him. To my way of thinking, it requires more faith to believe that chance could bring together all the complexities of biology, chemistry and physics in such a way as to create and sustain life, than to believe in a Creator God. In this, I am not alone.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph on the eve of the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species, in which the theory of evolution was revealed, journalist George Pitcher concludes that it “wasn’t science that destroyed his (Darwin’s) residual faith; it was the death of his 10-year-old daughter, Annie;” and that his “alienation from his former faith was driven by bitter personal experience, not cold, scientific analysis, as those who hail him as faith’s nemesis might like to claim.”

“He intuitively understood the pre-Enlightenment relationship between faith and reason,” Pitcher continues, and, unlike others, remained “a brave and honest explorer of all that makes us work."

It is that intuition that I believe makes explorers of us all. But only if we keep an open mind! Faith, says the author of the letter to the Hebrews, is the hope of things unseen. And what is required to keep that hope alive is a ‘suspension of disbelief’. This is the term coined by the poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to describe a reader’s acceptance of events or characters that would ordinarily be seen as incredible.

Whilst it is fictional works to which Coleridge refers, this suspension of disbelief is relevant to faith and vision. Neither the possession nor lack of wisdom and maturity are necessary for faith and vision to flourish. However, both may be quashed – deliberately or inadvertently – and that is to our loss, not gain! Quite literally, the ‘older and wiser’ we become the more prone some of us are to shrivel, become narrow-minded, and hard of heart.

When Jesus speaks of coming like little children, he is not asking us to become gullible or to deny our intelligence. He is merely asking us to throw off restraint and broaden our thinking - reminding us that with age comes the diminishment of some of our powers of discernment.

The sophistication that comes with adulthood and learning may become a barrier: an impervious coating which can insulate our hearts and minds, confine our growth and understanding, and prevent us from recognising – let alone using - all the faculties with which we’ve been endowed!

Faith is, thus, neither a ‘cop out’ nor an ‘excuse’ not to think. On the contrary, it requires that we do think. Beyond ourselves and our finite understanding. It is a point of growth: an expansion of the human mind. An enriching experience. An enlarging of vision.

CHILDLIKE

One of my earliest memories is of a conversation between my father and me that took place on a beach, when I was barely four years old and we were living in St Margaret’s Bay, near Dover, on the south coast of England. I recall nothing about our lodgings except that they were next to a Convent, and that my cousin, Peter, whom I adored, used to bunk me up on the adjoining wall so that I could spy on our neighbours’ activities, and report back to him!  The details of a nunnery may have been fascinating to a ten-year old boy, but I recall nothing of interest to me.

However, things were about to improve. That first Christmas, I was invited, with my cousins, to see the Nativity scene which the nuns had made. It was set out in what looked like a large aquarium, on a table to one side of the church. There was a hushed aura of expectancy as we approached.

Because I was so little, Peter lifted me up so that I could see. The floor of the tank was strewn with real dirt and straw, on which stood a grotto. Suspended above it was a ‘flying’ angel, whilst Mary and Joseph, angels, shepherds and animals were arranged in silent adoration around the manger, within which lay the baby Jesus. It was clear to me, even at that age, that he was the focus of attention.

The figurines were made of delicately painted ceramic, and stood about eight inches high. Peering in from my cousin’s arms, I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful in all my life. I was entranced.

Which is what prompted the question I later asked of my father as we sat on a rock on the beach!

“Who made God?”

In what, in later life, I grew to recognise as his deliberate mind-broadening style, my father answered me with another question.

“Where does the sky begin and end?”

I sat with my head down, deep in thought.

“There must be a fence around it,” I said, eventually.

My father skimmed a stone across the waves.

“And beyond the fence?” he asked.

I looked up at him and screwed up my nose.

“More sky?”

My father laughed.

“Same with God,” he explained, one hand on my shoulder. “No one ‘made’ him because he doesn’t have a beginning and end.”

And so, at the tender age of four, I began to learn about infinity, eternity, and – crucially – the fact that unbelief did not, necessarily, equate to a closed mind.

Unknowingly, I had approached God as indicated in the Bible, with all the innocence of a child. The Nativity scene had given me a glimpse of something beyond myself and, through my father, that vision had been enlarged. My eyes were opened.

NEXT TIME: TEN TENT PEGS 4: Character