Caught Between Two Worlds

We, our local church body…Fellowship Bible Church, began walking through the book of Ephesians on Sunday mornings last August. There is so much life-sustaining truth that is rich and deep but is still practical and applicable to my daily life.

We are finishing up with Paul’s explanation of the spiritual battle we find ourselves in. This is always such a fascinating subject to study. I also just finished Ted Dekker’s new book Adam that is a cross between Silence of the Lambs and The Exorcist (it’s a great book). The book includes a discussion between Ted Dekker and John Eldredge about spiritual warfare that was also really good. In that discussion, John Eldredge makes this comment…

“There is something in human nature that just doesn’t want to face the reality that we live in two worlds. We live in the physical, material world where we have jobs, read books, and go about our business. And we live in a spiritual world—and that is a world at war.”

I was reflecting on these words and found myself asking …“Why is it our nature to deny the spiritual world?” I came up with two reasons in my own life.

First, we live in a physical world. A world measured by the five senses where, according to secular humanism, science is the ultimate authority on what is real. In our daily maneuvering through this physical world topics like spiritual warfare simply don’t fit. Yet, when we are still and quite, there is a voice in us that whispers “there is more.” We can’t touch it, we can’t taste it, but if we are honest with ourselves not only do we hope there is more, we need there to be more! One of the glories of being human is that this physical place is not our only reality and to deny this is to be sub-human.

Secondly, to acknowledge there is more puts us in a much more dependent position than we like to admit. If our struggles really are not with flesh and blood but with an unseen enemy we need help. We can’t do this alone, and no matter how hard we fight to order our physical world, there is a huge part of our lives that is beyond us. What is interesting is that this realization is part of what makes the Gospel “good news”! We are dependent, whether we admit it or not, and we have the help we need. Though we may be physically alone, we are never abandoned! Once again, our dependence is a trait of our humanity and once embraced a source of limitless joy.

So, as with most things, it comes down to a crisis of belief. What is the final authority in our lives? What defines reality? Make no mistake…a decision must be made. Either we will seek to define reality ourselves, or we will submit to the one who spoke the worlds into existence. The choice is ours.