Let the Ladder Fall
Natalie Stembel // UGA Student
A few weeks ago I was struggling with our inability to do anything without committing sin, trying to keep the law by focusing all my attention on not breaking it. The spiral went south fast, and within hours my friends noticed I hadn't been saying anything. I chose my words carefully and told them how I couldn’t come up with anything I could do that wasn’t sin. If I thought about texting a friend a word of encouragement, I worried that I was doing it out of a place of making myself feel like a better friend. If I woke up early to get more done, I was stressed about prioritizing work over the Lord. If I spent that extra time with the Lord, I was worried I wasn’t serious enough about the things I needed to get done and in turn stewarding my time in a way that didn’t honor Him.
There seemed to be no way to win this battle. It was one I would come to learn was of the enemy and his agenda to steal and kill and destroy. He stole from me intimacy with the Lord and turned my relationship with Him into one of works and earning my way. I began to think that I could do enough, be enough, and strive enough to be a sufficient sacrifice for my own salvation. Then, he killed my ability to see grace as something wonderful, more than that, something I needed to be counted worthy. He tried to cover the truth of the gospel with the lies that while maybe His grace is sufficient for other people, it wasn’t for me, it couldn’t cover what I’ve done. As if to say, if only they knew. And finally, he destroyed my desire to grow in my relationship with the Lord, seeing it as a ladder that extended through fog, never-ending and positioned so that I could only see enough to where I stayed in the thoughts of, You’re almost there. Strive once more. You’re so close to the end. Of course, I never was. He knew this.
The enemy’s goal for your life isn’t to make you worship him but to make you worship yourself. And that’s exactly what I was doing. I was prioritizing what I could do, the friend I could be, and the grades I could get instead of living out what I have known to be true for so long. As faithful Christians, our lives with God should look more like what John Mark Comer says: “a crucible to burn our souls clean and forge us into people of love like Jesus” and not “a private, therapeutic self-help spirituality that is, honestly, just a Christianized version of radical individualism.”
So what can life look like when we stop believing these lies and let go of our white-knuckled-death-grip on the ladder we think brings healing?
Refer back to when I said the enemy comes only to steal and kill and destroy. While it’s true that I’ve seen it happen in my own life, this specific wording comes from a verse in the 10th chapter of the Gospel of John. But the hope we have in Jesus means that the verse does not end there. It continues, saying, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Other translations may say, “and have it to the full.”
This is a beautiful promise, but it can be hard to know how to live it out in our lives. Especially when it’s the enemy’s full time job to make us doubt it, and he loves working overtime.
It was the liar who convinced me of this ladder and The Truth that would break me free from it. Look at Psalm 23.
Psalm 23, verse 2. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. So no, the Lord does not sit back with a smile on His face as I climb up, and wipe sweat off my face, pausing only to sit in my shame as I muster up the energy to start again. The Lord makes me lie down in lush fields and leads me to calm waters. The life the Lord wants for us is worded wonderfully by an elderly peasant in the eighteenth century, when asked what he was doing at the church for hours. “I look at Him, He looks at me, and we are happy.” This is the opposite of what the father of lies wants for you.
Verse 3. “He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name sake.” The definition of restore is to “return to a former condition” so David is telling us that the Lord will return our souls to their former condition, one where we believe the Father of Truth, one where we see our relationship with Him as sitting in a grassy field, enjoying one another's company. Walking together. The paths of righteousness he mentions are a promise against the fear of sinning. When we are spending time with Him, in His word, in community with other believers, we can trust that He will lead us in paths of righteousness. Our focus should be on knowing Him, not just doing the right thing. If we care more about being seen as good or perfect than how well we know our Father, we’ve missed the point. And we can trust Him that as our desire for the true, honorable, lovely, and pure things mentioned in Philippians 4:8 increases, we will be formed more into the likeness of Christ. And with our sanctification will come a desire to sin less and less.
Verse 5. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. A commentary I love says this about verse 5, “though surrounded by enemies, I sit down to this table with confidence, knowing that I shall feast in perfect security.” So when it says my cup overflows, this is what the Lord means by life and life to the full. In fact, more than full! Runneth over!
Verse 6. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. It doesn’t say surely fear of failing or the guilt of imperfection shall follow me. It doesn’t say surely lies of the enemy and feeling like I’m never doing enough shall follow me. It doesn’t say reaching and striving and climbing and climbing shall follow me.
No. It says goodness and mercy. And for all the days of my life, goodness and mercy shall follow me. So instead of living on that prideful ladder of a shame-filled works-based salvation, we shall dwell in the house of the Lord. (Forever.)
Natalie Stembel is a 4th year at the University of Georgia studying Cognitive Science and minoring in American Sign Language. She chose UGA mostly for the football scene. She started coming to Watty her freshman year and interned with worship, spent the summer in South Asia, and learned how to live everyday life on mission in Boston last summer. She loves scripture memory, writing, and pickleball.
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