You are the car. The approaching semi-trucks are ideas.
The first semi is the American belief system—engrained in us from a very young age that because we are Americans we can be anything we want to be and do anything we want to do. We are only limited by our desires.
The second idea is that a miserable Christian is a contradiction in terms. That phrase was coined by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his book Spiritual Depression. It’s a nice quote, but I fear we’ve taken the good doctors saying a bit further than his intentions. For many this quote means that the true meat of Christian experience will be found on the mountaintop. This means if you aren’t absolutely giddy like a school girl in your infatuation with Jesus then there must be something a bit wrong in your relationship.
True Christians are sanguine (lively). You can be anything you want to be. Combine these two semis and the melancholic little compact car in the middle is going to get blown up.
A person with a more melancholic disposition isn’t going to express things the same way as someone who has more of a sanguine temperament. In his work on Thoughts On Religious Experience, Archibald Alexander explains well:
Sanguine persons, from the very impulse of ardent feeling, have a tendency to express things in strong language that constantly verges on exaggeration. They are apt to use superlatives and strong emphasis as wishing to convey a full idea of their feelings, while those of a colder temperament and more timid disposition fall below the reality in their descriptions, and are cautious not to convey to others too high an idea of what they have experienced.
But the modern Christian doesn’t believe this. Again, he believes that the mountaintop is where mature Christians always are and that he can be anything he wants to be. This is especially true of him as a believer. If the Spirit is in his heart then why can’t he be more sanguine if he wants to be?
The problem is, Christ likely doesn’t intend to redeem something which isn’t inherently sinful. What if he wants to use your melancholic disposition? Maybe your local church needs someone who is more intense and deep in their thinking. Just like anything else a melancholic disposition can be hijacked by sin, but such a disposition is not sinful. Nor is such a one with this disposition confined to a second-class Christianity.
Neither of those two semis are whole truths. Sanguinity isn’t the apex of Christian living. Christ-likeness is the apex of Christian living. Also, it isn’t true that you can be anything you want to be. Though it is true that Christ can shape you and mold you however he wants to.
C.S. Lewis provides a helpful balance:
But though natural likings should normally be encouraged, it would be quite wrong to think that the way to become charitable is to sit trying to manufacture affectionate feelings. Some people are ‘cold’ by temperament; that may be a misfortune for them, but it is no more a sin than having a bad digestion is a sin; and it does not cut them out from the chance, or excuse them from the duty, of learning charity. (Mere Christianity, 130)
I want to encourage those of you who happen to have a temperament which isn’t one of those coveted by our present culture. Don’t believe the lie that you are messed up just because you aren’t always on a mountaintop. Likewise, don’t believe the devil’s trash that Christ isn’t powerful enough to change you. He is. He just doesn’t need to. Christ came to overturn the works of the devil—not to overturn the beauty of God’s diverse creation.
