Itsara

In the last post, I explained Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s definitions of “cheap grace” and “costly grace” and I set the stage for the decision I was about to be faced with. This post is about how that decision was made and about God speaking to me.

Bonhoeffer made a distinction between cheap grace - grace which costs us nothing and changes nothing, and costly grace - grace which calls us to follow Jesus Christ. He seemed to be saying that some external act of obedience was not only desirable, but necessary for faith. It became clearer with the following passages from his book:

Everything depends on the first step [of obedience]. It has a unique quality of its own. The first step of obedience makes Peter leave his nets, and later get out of the ship; it calls upon the young man to leave his riches. Only this new existence, created through obedience, can make faith possible.

This first step must be regarded to start with as an external work, which effects the change from one existence to another. It is a step within everybody’s capacity, for it lies within the limits of human freedom. It is an act within the sphere of the natural law… and in that sphere man is free. Although Peter cannot achieve his own conversion, he can leave his nets.…

Once we are sure of this point, we must add at once that this step is, and can never be more than, a purely external act and a dead work of the law, which can never of itself bring a man to Christ…. If a drunkard signs the pledge, or a rich man gives all his money away, they are both of them freeing themselves from their slavery to alcohol or riches, but not from their bondage to themselves….

Nevertheless, the external work must be done, for we still have to find our way into the situation where faith is possible. We must take a definite step. What does this mean? It means that we can only take this step aright if we fix our eyes not on the work we do, but on the word with which Jesus calls us to do it.

[Emphasis mine.]

I could go on and quote the entire first few chapters to you, but you can read the book for yourself and, anyway, this story is about me, right? So I’ll end my quoting of Bonhoeffer with this passage, which is where (in addition to the previous excerpts) I really started thinking about my own life:

Clergy frequently come across cases like this nowadays…. [A man] complains that God’s commandment is uncertain, and susceptible of different interpretations. At first he was aware enough of his disobedience, but with his increasing hardness of heart that awareness grows ever fainter, and in the end he becomes so enmeshed that he loses all capacity for hearing the Word, and faith is quite impossible. One can imagine him conversing thus with his pastor: “I have lost the faith I once had.” “You must listen to the Word as it is spoken to you in the sermon.” “I do; but I cannot get anything out of it, it just falls on deaf ears as far as I’m concerned.” “The trouble is, you don’t really want to listen.” “On the contrary, I do.” And here they generally break off, because the pastor is at a loss what to say next. He only remembers the first half of the proposition: “Only those who believe obey.” But this does not help, for faith is just what this particular man finds impossible. The pastor feels himself confronted with the ultimate riddle of predestination. God grants faith to some and withholds it from others. So the pastor throws up the sponge and leaves the poor man to his fate. And yet this ought to be the turning-point of the interview. It is the complete turning-point. The pastor should give up arguing with him, and stop taking his difficulties seriously. That will really be in the man’s own interest, for he is only trying to hide himself behind them. It is now time to take the bull by the horns, and say: “Only those who obey believe.” Thus the flow of the conversation is interrupted, and the pastor can continue: “You are disobedient, you are trying to keep some part of your life under your own control. That is what is preventing you from listening to Christ and believing in his grace. You cannot hear Christ because you are wilfully disobedient. Somewhere in your heart you are refusing to listen to his call. Your difficulty is your sins.”…

The truant must be dragged from the hiding-place which he has built for himself. Only then can he recover the freedom to see, hear, and believe. Of course, though it is a work, the first step entails no merit in the sight of Christ - it can never be more than a dead work. Even so Peter has to get out of the ship before he can believe.

It was at this point, as I sat on our couch looking out at the darkened, overcast sky, that I thought to myself, “I have felt like this man. In fact, I often feel like this. What might my external act of obedience be?” A few things immediately crossed my mind, but I dismissed them. I can only say that I didn’t feel convicted about them, and most of them were things that I was doing anyway and not as a response to Jesus’ call. Until I thought about my games. That’s when my gut sank.

I was terrified. I knew that this was Jesus’ answer to my question and I knew that, while I had the freedom to say no, it would be stupid to do so - it would be saying no to Jesus directly. I love and respect Jesus too much to say no to him when I know he’s asking something of me. There was an animated dialogue going on in my mind. I’m not sure how much of the second voice was Jesus and how much was me, but I wrote it as a second person for clarity. The dialogue went something like this:

“I need time to think about this.”
“Peter and Levi didn’t take any time when they left their jobs to follow Jesus.”
“But games are what I do!. It would mean changing my whole life.”
“Which is no less than what Jesus asked of his disciples, or of the rich young man who was asked to give up all his money. The impracticality of a life change does not mean it’s not from Jesus - in fact, it makes it more likely that it is Jesus.”
“I’m known as a gamer. People will ask uncomfortable questions.”
“Of course they will, and you’ll answer those questions and it will probably be a bigger witness to those people than you have been to them your whole life.”
“What about Emmet and Cindy? I can’t just take my games away from them because of some feeling I have!”
“You know that, of all your friends, they are likely to be the most supportive. You know that without even asking them.”
“But I’ve made implicit commitments to people. I mean, I just started playing and collecting Warhammer stuff with Matt and the guys at work like 3 months ago.”
“I’m sure James and John had implicit commitments to their father when they left him. Probably stronger than yours.”
“But for some of my non-Christian friends, games are what we do together. Surely I still have to be a witness to them.”
“Levi had lots of non-Christian friends connected only through his old job. I’m sure lots of them ditched him when he left to follow Jesus, but I bet there were others who were saved because of what he did. That’s what happens when you truly witness to people: some turn away and some follow, but they all are forced to make a necessary choice.”

This inner dialogue continued for, literally, about two hours. The entire time I was just sitting on the couch, with the book in my lap and a finger keeping my place. I was running out of reasons to say no. And it did not go unnoticed that the responses came immediately and were directly from the Bible most of the time.

But my mind wasn’t occupied solely on the debate. I caught (or was given) occasional glimpses of what life might be like without my games. It was exciting in a way I didn’t understand. I also saw freedom in this possible future, which was strange because I didn’t even realize that I wasn’t free. Those glimpses were the deal-breaker for me. After two hours of intense stationary thought, I realized that I had already made my decision. When I considered saying no again, I discovered I couldn’t do it - I actually didn’t want to.

But that didn’t make execution of the call any easier. It occurred to me that when Jesus asked the rich man to sell everything he had, it wasn’t a one day task. The details of that call would have been tremendous as he catalogued everything, put it on the market, answered questions, explained to clients and friends what he was doing and why, etc. I wonder if all of that went through his head before he turned away sad.

It went through my head, and next time I’ll finish this story with the details of what I had to do and the results of this decision thus far.