Shaped by Grace

Well, it’s the end of another week on Things Unseen, and we’ve spent these few minutes each day this week reflecting on what I’ve called “soul shapes.” It wouldn’t surprise me if this week some of us have either thought or heard words like this: “Something seems to have bent him out of shape today.” It may be because they’re irritated and irritating, or they’re moody and uncommunicative—that’s obvious. But what isn’t so obvious about this being bent out of shape is why it’s happened. We see the effects, but we don’t always know the reason, the cause. And that’s what I mean by a person’s soul shape: the inner distortion that takes place invisibly in our hearts that manifests itself either quickly or slowly in patterns of life that are un-Christlike.

Earlier in the week, I mentioned how helpful something I read in Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s diary has been to me: “The seeds of every known sin are in my heart.” But at the same time, as we’ve noticed, we are individuals, and sinful distortions manifest themselves in particular ways in particular people. We’ve a common disease, the same basic distortion, but it shapes itself individually.

When I was growing up, toothpaste used to come in metallic-type tubes. And sometimes, little nicks or holes would appear, and as you squeezed the toothpaste, instead of it coming out the mouth of the tube, it would come out one of these little nicks in the side. And then, when you put your finger on that nick to try to prevent the toothpaste coming out, whenever you squeezed the tube the toothpaste seemed to find another little nick from which to emerge.

And I used to think that that was a parable of the way sin works in our lives. Our sinfulness manifests itself at particular points of our spiritual weakness, and we try to cover that point up. But then it just reappears in another form. Sin will always out. And the fact that it appears in one guise in my life and another guise in your life doesn’t mean that you have conquered sin in the area that I haven’t; it just means it’s manifesting itself at your lowest point of resistance, wherever you happen to be weak and easily tempted.

So much more could be said about different soul shapes. But I want to end this week by sharing with you something that’s been helpful to me personally. I think it helps protect Christians who are serious about sanctification. It helps to protect them falling into the temptation of being judgmental about the frailties and weaknesses of others.

Around the time I was helped by those words of Robert M’Cheyne, I was also helped by some words of the great seventeenth-century writer, John Owen. He wrote this—think about this in terms of soul shapes. He says, you don’t measure someone’s spiritual growth by the height that they seem to have attained, but by the distance they’ve had to travel and the obstacles they’ve had to overcome to arrive at where they are today.

I often think about that. I see people who really don’t seem to be very tall spiritually, at least certainly not when compared with others. Some of them seem to be in so much need at times. They need encouragement. They almost seem to limp along, while others walk easily or even run. But then you discover their background—the damage that’s been inflicted on them by others, the few privileges they’ve had to help them. They seem to us to be the little people. But we’ve not taken into account the tremendous obstacles they’ve experienced and overcome. The truth may well be they have grown far more than we have, even if to all appearances they have not reached the height that we think we have attained. But nothing is hidden from the eyes of our Savior. And He sees, hidden in the inner soul shape of these so-called little people, a development of spiritual graces that’s been far greater than ours, perhaps, because by His grace, they’ve overcome tremendous obstacles.

We’ve been thinking about soul shapes, and what I want us to avoid is knowing about soul shapes and then being critical of the shapes of others. And that’s why I mention this as something to bear in mind. Don’t measure someone else’s soul shape or spiritual growth by how tall they seem to be. But learn the obstacles they’ve overcome, and then I think you’ll really begin to appreciate them. That’s something to bear in mind when you’re at church this coming Lord’s Day, isn’t it? It’ll make you a more appreciative member of whatever church you belong to. I hope you have a blessed weekend and Lord’s Day. And, if you can, join us again on Things Unseen next week.