9th March, 2011

LLOYD HARKNESS

Stumbling block: such a visual term, or dare I say, a concrete image. I immediately picture square cut and dressed stone; not just a rock but a stone fashioned for a particular purpose.

In the Bible stumbling blocks are twofold in character.

Firstly they are a barrier blocking your path. Not to be too literal they can be a pile of stones, a rock, a fallen tree, a land slip or a washed out road. It is anything that makes it difficult to continue on your set course. You have to climb over, crawl under, bridge the gap or find the shortest detour around it to continue on to your destination. This can be treacherous and at best you will lose time.

PICTURE: © Irina Drazowa-Fischer (www.istockphoto.com) "Because stumbling blocks are a norm in life I tend to refine Paul’s analogy of the Christian life being like that of an athlete to being a hurdler or steeple chase competitor. Like isn’t a matter of simply taking off and doing a lap of the athletics field."

The second type of stumbling block is a snare or trap which snaps shut on you. Like an animal lured to bait you stumble into the hunters trap triggering its unalterable mechanism. There is pain involved here. A mistake has been made and sin has snapped tight its ravenous jaws. You have to extricate yourself and tend to the wound. At best time is lost and at worst the injury keeps you from your destination.

In each of these situations you lose your pace, your momentum and your rhythm. This is the purpose of a stumbling block. They are in our paths to cause the fall of one or many.

Because stumbling blocks are a norm in life I tend to refine Paul’s analogy of the Christian life being like that of an athlete to being a hurdler or steeple chase competitor. Like isn’t a matter of simply taking off and doing a lap of the athletics field.

In the classic Australian film Gallipoli one of the lead characters is in training when this conversation takes place:

Jack:  What are your legs?
Archy Hamilton:  Springs. Steel springs.

Jack:  What are they going to do?
Archy Hamilton:  Hurl me down the track.

Those steel springs need to be ready for the hurdles and water traps on life’s field. If you prepare for these challenges you can maintain some pace, momentum and rhythm.

So what are some of life’s snares or blocks?

The Old Testament categorically claims if you love God, you will not stumble. A love for God is to flow into every aspect of life from the national political stage to the personal. On the political front the Israelites were told they would become ensnared if they made alliances with foreign nations. Israel’s political leaders had to first look to God. On the personal front the Israelites were instructed to keep success a blessing and not let it become a snare. They were to love the ‘blesser’ more than the blessing.

The New Testament has quite a bit to say on this subject too. You could compile an extensive list of stumbling blocks, a significant percentage of which would relate to causing an offence. Some snares or blocks are:

       • A haughty spirit

       • Being self serving

• False doctrine
• People who cause friction and division
• Offensive behaviour
• People who direct children, and those who seek to be with Jesus, elsewhere
• Persecution
• Temptations of the flesh and the world
• People who take advantage of others
• People who seek to quash faith in Jesus
• People who give others a hard time
• People who set out to tempt or seduce
• People who compile their own gospel with bits and pieces of teachings
• People who expose the vulnerable to ‘old associations’
• Thistles in the wheat crop and wolves in the sheep flock

Be considerate, encourage one another in the faith, dwell in God’s light so you don’t block the light for others, love as Christ loved us: these are some of the ways to avoid snares and blocks. They can also be the heavy lifting equipment for lifting that tree, removing those stones or that land slip, bridging that road collapse or unclenching the jaws of that snare.

We need to do whatever we can to counteract offence and stand clear of getting in someone else’s way on Faith Road. It is so easy to blunder and stumble. Protective Peter thought he was saying the right thing when he took Jesus aside to speak to Him about His dying at the hands of Israel’s religious leaders. Jesus, however, saw in Peter’s words a trap of Satan to redirect Him from His Father’s path. Love maintained this relationship. They got through the offence and continued on together.

Too often we see people journey a certain distance with Jesus only to stumble and be diverted by lies, deceit, the self-serving actions of others, an unwillingness to change, to push on, to persevere, to travel light and abandon the luggage they had when joining the pilgrimage with Christ.

My short prayer is: May I not be a stumbling block and when I stumble may there be others there to help me get going again on Faith Road.

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