SADD

This acronym has been used for the purpose of alcohol awareness, but today I’d like to use it for something different. From the world of psychology, ADD—Attention Deficit Disorder, has caught the attention of the academicians and parents. They see in some children a difficulty to focus on a task or several tasks, to be able to accomplish them without jumping from one task to another, never finishing any of them, thus potentially unable to accomplish great things in future life. This is all due to a constant distraction and confusion inside the mind. This condition remains all through life and on into old age. Some parents of young ones have difficulty in calling this condition a “disorder,” but, being a victim of it myself, I can attest that it is truly abnormal and disabling, and, in my opinion, unfortunately but correctly, labeled a disorder.

But what I want to write about today is a similar disorder, and one that we are all plagued with. SADD—Spiritual Attention Deficit Disorder. We all are born sinners, separated from God, and spiritually deficit in attending to Him. We naturally attend to only our surroundings in this world, to only the physical. We have lost the ability to focus beyond our immediate world, and our faculty of looking to God in faith is completely atrofied. Thus our relationship with our Creator and Redeemer is gravely hampered; our love is reduced to only the love for the beauty of nature and to the appreciation for nature’s mysteries and mechanisms, unless a deeper filial love for another person can take root. Nevertheless, the infinitely deep love of God for us still usually goes unnoticed and creates a God-sized hole in our hearts.

But there have been some who were healed of SADD . Their drifting, listless lack of spirituality was arrested. Their focus got trained. Their shifting eyes calmed and riveted on the divine One of heaven. We read of Noah and of Enoch, that they “walked with God.” That doesn’t give much detail, but those few words do say that they learned to hold continuous communion with Christ. That settled hold on God stayed with them all through the day, every day. Wonderful, wonderful thought! Their walk led them into exciting ventures. Noah was able to invest his lifework into the apparently foolhardy construction of a gigantic ship, framed and armored using wood that was nearly as hard as stone, built in the middle of the highlands, many miles from the nearest sea. He was enabled to speak out against the popular lifestyles and to stand alone against a world of wickedness without fear of rejection or contempt. Enoch, Noah’s great-grandfather, also fearlessly and in love, spoke out against the prevailing corruption of the antediluvian world, and prophesied of Christ’s second coming in power and judgment on wickedness. He drew so close to heaven over the course of 300 years, he so walked above the distractions of a world of sin, that Christ said, “Go get him, I want him right next to Me.”

Many others also have walked with God by faith. We have a list drawn up in Hebrews chapter 11 of a great cloud of examples with whom God was able to get the attention and keep it to the very end of their life. Moses overcame the pull of sin, even among the promiscuous life of the Egyptian slaveholding elite, and remained immune to the badgering, insulting, and complaining people he saved from slavery, all of which he did while “seeing Him who is invisible.” Heb. 11:27. While barren landscape and the draining heat surrounded the multitudes of Israel and closed them in, Moses lived as if in heaven. He knew where that cloud came from that always overshadowed the camp; he remembered the mighty deliverance from Egypt and lived in those memories. He saw the hand of God working daily for their protection and development. He dwelled in wonderment at the symbolism woven into all the ceremonial system, which was constantly falling from God’s lips. Moses wasn’t in a desolate desert; he was in the land of promise that flowed with milk and honey.

Abraham’s SADD was slowly healed by uprooting and going on a lifelong search. He moved and moved, ever listening for that still small voice, a voice so slight that it forced him to block out every other stimulus, in order to make out what that voice was saying; a sensory deprivation that obviously had forced him to leave the din of Babylon’s suburb. Over time he was able to discern God’s voice better and better, and conversation began. Ultimately his powers of faith and love were trained to look beyond his immediate environs and mundane existence. “He looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Heb. 11:10. He learned to accept God’s promises, “not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth...and...now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly.” Heb. 11:13-16.

The prophets, privileged with visions and dreams from heaven, not only David who loved to remain in the heavenly sanctuary,“in the house of the Lord forever,” but other men and women from all walks of life, learned to walk in the very atmosphere of heaven, people “who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions...others were tortured, not accepting deliverance.” Heb. 11:33-38. And why endure torture? Why die for faith? Because they had been healed of their spiritual attention malady and the new world upon which they could now focus was so full of grace, that nothing in this physical world could substitute for it. The trust and calm that God developed in them provided an escape from this world of sin and selfishness; and a profound desire to forget self and serve others, nature and human relationships could not compete with.

But none of the Bible heroes knew faith like Jesus did. Born God from God, He had the Spirit without measure. His relationship with His Father was continuous and deep from the very dawning of His childish intelligence. Communion wasn’t trained in Him, it came naturally. There was no struggle, no rebellious repulsion before accepting God. He was born perfectly suited to live in the light of His Father’s love.

I like the very brief, yet deep, description of His dual-coherent communion, in the book, The Desire of Ages. The setting is at the Pool of Bethesda. “Jesus was again at Jerusalem. Walking alone, in apparent meditation and prayer, He came to the pool.” p. 201. It was that walk in meditation and prayer, moment by moment, which enabled Jesus to accomplish the demanding physical drain of constantly healing multitudes, and provided the source for teaching them the deep things of God with a confidence and authority that instilled His faith in them. That deeply rooted communion allowed Christ to walk above the foray of conniving and treacherous men. All the trials and hardships of this life were only the clouds that “are the dust of His feet.” Nah. 1:3.

When He walked on the water of the stormy Sea of Tiberias, He was communicating this very lesson to the disciples He loved. He not only loved them, but He wanted them to know Him better and the life of faith that He was enjoying, but which they couldn’t see nor imagine. Peter wanted to get out of the boat and to be able to do the impossible like Jesus. Jesus allowed him to walk on the water with Him in order to open Peter’s eyes to the lesson of spirituality that Christ desired to convey in this acted out parable, that a life of communion with God is a life of incomprehensible peace above the storms of life.

Of the Son of God and His communion with His loving Father, it was written, “Who is blind, but My Servant? Or deaf, as My Messenger that I sent? Who is blind as He that is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s Servant? Seeing many things, but Thou observest not; opening the ears, but He heareth not. The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake; He will magnify the law, and make it honourable.” “He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till He have set judgment in the earth.” Is. 42:19-21, 4. Locked in love with His Father, nothing could disturb His peace. All who lived before and after His incarnation have known something of surrender to God, but the Son of God knew God as Him who is all that there is. Christ lived in a world that displayed His Father at every turn. His ceiling or sky was always filled by His Father’s presence and righteousness; He was always encircled by His Father. Jesus alone gave to God perfect 100% surrender; with absolute trust and full love He gave Himself to His Father without reservation. This is why the Father was so well pleased with His beloved Son. “He that cometh from above is above all...for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.” (Jn. 3:31,34).

When we, too, have set our “affections on things above, not on things on the earth,” and are “hid with Christ in God”(Col. 3:2,3); when “our conversation is in heaven,” (Phil. 3:20), and God “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” (Eph. 2:6), “to ride upon the high places of the earth,” (Is. 58:14) and to be “fixed” on Christ and His righteousness, “trusting in the Lord,” (Ps. 57:7; 108:1; 112:7); when we have passed the test of Jacob’s trouble—then Christ can come to claim His people as His own.

To those whose heart has finally been settled and fixed on Christ, when they are “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,” (Eph. 1:13) and the wrestling is over and all behind them, when the final conflagration of Christ’s coming in power and great glory is upon them; then the invitation will be repeated which they have experienced many times before, “Come, My people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.” Is. 26:20.

Then translation will happen for us as it did for Enoch. Our faith unbroken, our characters like Christ’s, we will keep our eyes trained on Him while we but step from earth to heaven. By faith our spiritual ADD has been suspended during our earthly sojourn and now the propensity to distraction will vanish away. And believe it or not, God will say, “They shall walk with Me in white: for they are worthy.” Rev. 2:4. “And His name shall be in their foreheads.” Rev. 22:4.