Teach me, Lord, that the fight of faith is not a fight with doubt, thought against thought, but a fight for character. Enable me to see that human vanity consists in having to understand. Save me from the vanity of not being willing to obey like a child, and of wanting to be like a grown man who has to understand. Help me to realize that he who will not obey when he cannot understand does not, in any essential sense, obey you at all. Make me a believer, a “character man,” who, unreservedly obedient, sees it as necessary for his character’s sake that he must not always understand. Make me willing to believe even when I cannot understand.
Provocations are taken from Provocations: The Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard
here here.
Hear, hear. Or perhaps ‘There, there’ (in response to Luke). Good thoughts, Dan!
I had to read it twice. Good words. Amen.
Such good words. So hard, and neccessary, to live.