A Lesson From Biology - Why There's No Such Thing As "Status Quo"

Right now at my home church, we're very blessed to have our senior pastor Mark Lehmann and his wife home safe from sabbatical. I knew when we sent them on their well-earned break that we'd have to be prepared to keep up with him when they returned and boy, was I right! Its a good thing. Pastor Mark said last night at Wednesday service that he's found that when he just tries to maintain where he's at with God, he actually starts to lose ground. For that reason its important for all of us to keep moving forward after our Lord. And being the science nerd that I am, it hit me...that's just like the human body.

Most of you probably remember from high school that the body is composed of millions of tiny cells, each with their own characteristics and lifespans. In order for a human to gain mass and size as he develops from a child to adult, the cells in his body must divide and produce more cells at a rate much much faster than they die off. So if the average cell lives for ~1 month, the cells of a child will divide around twice as much as the cells of an adult during that lifespan, giving the child's body more mass.

The interesting thing is that once you become an adult, your cells still have to divide and produce offspring to keep you being you. They don't just sit there and stay the same all the time. Every time you eat, breathe, touch something, think something, or just plain exist with your environment you lose cells due to damage. So if your body didn't constantly produce replacements for those, along with replacements for the cells that naturally die, you'd cease to be a form anyone would recognize as human. This is a major cause of many diseases in the body, such as sickle cell anemia and osteoporosis. In addition to that each cell you are born with has a genetic timecode in it for the number of times it can divide without losing important DNA. Once that limit is reached there is no more cell division from that line. This is the fundamental cellular reason why we all age, we basically start to lose the body's ability to renew itself and maintain its form.

Here's the parallel: our bodies must constantly expend energy to grow in order for us not to die. There's a certain level of energy and effort required to keep us being us. Anything above and beyond that allows us to develop beyond our current state. If this is true for us physically, its certainly true of us spiritually; after all, we are uniquely physical-spiritual beings and many of the rules of physically mirror those of the spiritual realm. This is why there is no such thing as "status quo" for Christians. When we stop running after God, when we stop feeding on His Word or loving His people, when we stop praying and worshiping Him, we cut off our own lifesource. We start to age. We start to die inside. And then we wonder why He seems so distant, why we feel so empty, why we have little joy in our lives.

I'm currently poking at a brand new book called "The Me I Want To Be" from one of my favorite authors, John Ortberg. In it he very honestly talks about the difference between the "status quo" and flourishing in his own life, and why spiritual growth is vital to the everyday Christian. The point he tries to make is that all of us need to be intentional about our walk if we are going to survive as a Christian. It doesn't matter if you are a passionate person or not, a learned person or not, a hurting person, broken person, confused person, whatever. Every time you choose to make an effort with Christ, no matter how small, you are choosing to live. Our bodies make that choice for us automatically so we don't have to think about it much beyond eating the right kinds of foods and getting good sleep. Unfortunately we can't treat our new spiritual bodies the same way. We are saved, we are destined for heaven, and we won't ever lose that, BUT we have to choose: either we cross the finish line on our own two feet as heirs of the kingdom or we get dragged across by God's wind of motion as the kingdom charity cases. Diane Duane puts it like this in "High Wizardry" from her Young Wizard series:

Those who refuse to serve the Powers,
become the tools of the Powers.
Those who agree to serve the Powers,
themselves become the Powers.

Beware the Choice! Beware refusing it!

And its true. There's no such thing as "status quo", friends. Not in this Life.