The Necessary Cliff

I find it remarkable that after all my “Christian” striving and acquiring, the end of my path still leads to the foot of the cross. I have found myself in this place before.

A few years ago, after serving in the church for seven years, in the middle of my junior year at Moody Bible College, I sat on the floor by the side of my bed and wept, shoulders slumped over in despair and exhausted, as the true understanding of the cross of Christ came crashing down all around me. Broken, defeated, humiliated, confused. I asked God, “Why?” All that time, all that work, all that effort, and it only led to the end of myself. It only led to the realization that the only thing I really accomplished was to learn how not to follow Jesus, how not to serve Jesus, to learn what church wasn’t, what Christianity wasn’t. After all my effort, I found myself at the dead-end of a path that led to a rough-hewn cross.

Even then, He allowed me to get up and think, “I will now continue on, I will rise higher, I will go further as I seek the Lord where He may be found.” He let me get up and walk. He let me read all the books and pray all the prayers and hear all the teachings. He let me strive for holiness and acquire knowledge, yet time after time, when I round the final corner and look up to see what I have gained, the end of the path is the foot of the cross. Whether walking after wisdom, holiness, patience, love, or whatever endeavor, whatever pursuit, His answer has always been the same. The path has always led to the foot of the cross.

After all this time, I have learned that the cross is our necessary cliff. Beloved, we must come to this understanding. The foot of the cross is where all our wandering and pursuits and endeavors will always lead. The cross sits at the end of every path we take in the name of the Lord. It sits upon a cliff that overlooks a vast, impassable chasm. For it is here that we must come the understanding that to go on any further, we cannot do it by human ingenuity or effort. It is here that we must understand that our hands are nailed to this cross so that we cannot work according to our own will, and our feet are nailed so that we cannot walk the path of our own reasoning and desire. The only way forward, the only way off this cliff is to be pinned down hand-and-foot and die to yourself. Completely.

Oswald Chambers speaks of this cliff as the place where you stop being, and Christ begins living in you and through you. The place where we “stop being the intensely striving Christian” we have been. Because to go further from this place—this cliff which overlooks an impassable abyss—we do not strive for goodness or practice religion, we yield to death (Rom 6:3). It is here, on this cliff, that we learn to wait upon the Lord. It is here that He teaches our soul how to correctly seek Him and wait quietly for His salvation (Lam 3:25, 26). It is here, as we sit in darkness and silence and unknowing, that He teaches us that He is gracious and merciful (Isaiah 30:18), that He is faithful to hear us (Micah 7:7), and it is in the discipline and agony of waiting that our strength is renewed and we are given wings like an eagle to mount up from this cliff and soar over the abyss and into His eternal provision (Isaiah 40:30,31).

You see beloved, for so long I said in my heart, “I will continue, I will rise, I will go, I will work, I will teach, I will preach, I will acquire…” But for so long, all my striving was in my own strength. The Lord allows this to teach us. He allows us to seek Him in our own strength, but the end of that path is the same for all of us. And we either face that truth now and willingly yield to it, or we will face it later and be judged by it.

(Col 3:1-3) Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, strive for the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you have died, and your life has been hidden with Christ in God.

(Gal 2:20) I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

(Romans 6:5-7) For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

(Acts 17:30,31) Although God overlooked the ignorance of earlier times, He now commands all people everywhere to repent. For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.