Barriers

Karl Barth talks about God promising Abraham a bright future and a son as an heir, but Abraham is nearly 100-years-old and Sarah’ womb is dead. The promise seems so impossible that both Abraham and Sarah laugh at God. It is ridiculous, beyond all experience and reason. But they believe God, and when the son comes they name him Yitsak, Isaac, which means laughter. Barth says, “Faith ... grips reason by the throat and strangles the beast.”

The point is that the barrier is there for a purpose. Once the ladder of faith is scaled, we reach a new height. Once we climb, we get out of the shallows and out of the shadows. Faith becomes more than just a list of things we believe. We move beyond just spouting slogans and cliches. New vistas and horizons arise that we did not think were possible. We see, that with the help of God, we are capable of things of which we never knew we were capable. We will never know what we could have achieved, or what we could have become, unless we press on and climb these obstacles. All of us will face barriers. The question is what will we do when faced with them. Will we sit down and give up and get mad, or will we put the ladder of faith against the barrier and begin our climb?

I often think of God leading the people of Israel out of Egypt. It was an exciting time, full of the promises of God. But it was also a dangerous and difficult time, full of the threats of Pharaoh, and the tests and trials of faith of what it meant to follow God. God had announced his love for them and his desire to free them from their slavery. They always thought that was what they wanted. But there were barriers to their freedom that they had to climb which at times it looked impossible. The task masters increased their work load. There was the Red Sea. There was the Sinai wilderness. There was bickering among the people. There was a lack of food and water. So as they faced these things, they decided that maybe slavery was not so bad after all, and they rebelled and made plans to head back to Egypt. The Israelites said to Moses, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death’” (Exodus 16:2-3).

And then they faced the challenge of entering the land that God was promising. There were great blessings and abundance there, but there were also barriers. There were people who were fierce warriors and giants. Again they rebelled. It was a land flowing with milk and honey, but the Bible says, “Then they despised the pleasant land; they did not believe his promise. They grumbled in their tents and did not obey the LORD” (Psalm 106:24-25). Great blessings and opportunities were before them, but they stayed in their tents depressed. It is the way we often face barriers isn’t it? The exciting possibilities of the future are darkened by the difficulties of the present. It is just easier to sit and be angry and depressed than it is to trust.