Spongelike Christianity: Meditations from a Clouded Mind

I am a sponge. I soak up the water, become filled, and then I am useful. When I am full I am helpful tool that can be used for a variety of righteous acts. I am an agent of cleanliness for the purpose of making your home a shinier place. You can use me to clean your dishes, your counter tops, your stove, and even your toilet. I will gladly participate in cleaning the dirtiest places, because I love to be full, and I love to be used for good when I am full. However, at some point I will be used up, and worn out. Two giant hands grasp either end of my body and squeeze, twist, squeeze, and twist again until I am almost empty. Used up and empty I will be discarded, placed beside the sink until next time I am placed in the water. I will dry up, my body will become disfigured and cracked, and I will emit an unpleasant mildew-like odor. I will remain dormant until I am placed in the water again.

Christianity can be sponge-like. I hear the Word of God preached well by passionate Biblical expositors like Chan (www.cornerstonesimi.com), Piper (www.desiringgod.org), Akin (www.sebts.edu), etc. and I soak it up. I experience exegetical Biblical teaching by Jenkins, Dean, Brown, etc. and I’m filled to the brim. I read passages in Scripture like Romans 8, Isaiah 40-41, Romans 10, Matthew 25, etc. and want nothing more than to run, with beautiful feet, to the dirtiest places in the world and immerse myself in the darkest culture so that I can proclaim with boldness the gospel of peace. Then the world squeezes, twists, squeezes, and twists my heart until I am nearly empty. I am discarded and useless, becoming warped like a dry sponge. This style of Christianity is not Biblical, and I do not have a simple solution. I do have the desire for change however, and I hope that if your Christianity is sponge-like then you desire change as well. My suggestion is to read the following passages of scripture often, perhaps daily, and pray that God will change your sponge-like Christianity into something better (I have not thought of a clever analogy to counter the sponge just yet, though I am working on it).

Isaiah 40:28

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, 31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

Romans 8:31-38

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written: “ For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”[c]37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 10:14-17

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “ How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace,[h] Who bring glad tidings of good things!”[i]
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “LORD, who has believed our report?”[j] 17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.