T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 4

Paralysis

The Paralysis of Disappointed Expectations

There are not a few typical instances of such in the Word of God. Some of these are discerned in ejaculatory and fragmentary expressions, such as that of Job, "My purposes are broken off"; or of the two on the Emmaus Road - "But we trusted..." or, again, of John the Baptist - "Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?"

And then as to the man who has come to be known as "The Rich Fool," there are two fragments in the narrative - "He said... but God said."

In each case there was an arriving at an end, a deadlock, a paralysis, and each represented a false expectation.

Two of these at least (i.e. John the Baptist and the Emmaus Road) were to be accounted for by a mistaken conception. This conception is very far reaching today and has become responsible for much deception; a deception which works in two ways. On the one hand many give up in despair - like John the Baptist - because the issues which they had come to believe were immediately inseparable from a certain acceptance and line of action have not developed; the results have not followed, the success has not materialised. On the other hand many have been ensnared by this false conception into thinking that a certain kind of success, increase, popularity, achievement, is THE thing, while - as a matter of fact - the ultimate spiritual value is almost if not entirely lacking.

In these two cases there were at least two further fundamental misconceptions which issued in paralysis. One was the failure to recognise the initial, primary, and essentially spiritual nature of Christ's mission and work. In their minds the temporal and earthly bulked upon the horizon to the exclusion of the spiritual and heavenly. We think it unnecessary for us to show how much this was so. It is one of the most obvious things in the Gospels, and was one of the Master's greatest problems with His disciples. Again and again, He tried to let in light to correct this misconception, and knew that it would be the ground upon which at last they would all be offended, the difficulty over which they would all stumble, when they saw Him an apparently helpless victim on the Cross.

There was also a total misconception of the order of events, as Acts 15:14-16 (R.V.) clearly shows. There was a complete incapacity to recognise the Divine purpose, method, means, time, instrument, basis, and passion. This let in personal interests, concerns, ambitions, and false anxieties. The thwarting of these, and the disillusionment of the Cross smashed them and their whole scheme of things.