Chapter One
The Instinct to Look Up
Deep within every mortal heart lies a created hunger for theheavenly mountains of God's presence.
All of us, from our infancy, have silently wondered what lies on theslopes above the mists, hidden from view ... up where God dwells.
The animal kingdom comes into existence looking abroad upon theland. Those of the species known as mankind, however, enter life with theirgaze directed upward.
Lower forms of life are born with physical instincts. Their impulsesoperate horizontally, telling them intuitively how to relate to the worldaround them, to others of their genus, and to different species. Theirs is aninstinct toward procreation and survival, toward horizontal relationship andexistence.
Man, however, created in the image of God, possesses instincts of analtogether different nature. Within us the Creator has implanted spiritualinstincts, tending far beyond mere physical survival. Impulses akin to animalinstincts constantly surface within us and are certainly intrinsic to our makeup,but they remain secondary to the deepest nature of human personhood.
Man's instinct is vertical—a yearning after the high, the lasting, theeternal. It is an instinct after growth, after betterment, after significance,after something and Someone above us. When in touch with the truestregions of our humanness, we seek the sky, not the earth.
The lungs of our soul ache to breathe the air of eternity. And thoughmists obscure our sight, our deepest perceptions tell us there is more to existencethan that which our physical eyes see around us. Something affirms toour innermost being that there are higher regions where we might live,where the air is cleaner, where vision is keener, where the senses come morefully alive.
A divine restlessness exists within the innermost chambers of our soul,stirring us with longings we cannot identify,which we futilely attempt to satisfywith bread that is not food, made fromhusks that are not grain.
The mountains beckon us who live inthe valley. Our deepest selves are out ofstep with the modern life pushing andshoving us on every side. You have caughtyourself, as have I, glancing upward,though you may not even know what it is your heart seeks.
Before the valley philosophers and theologians created the mists withtheir self-contradictory babblings, there were voices among us, calling us toheed that instinctive longing.
Augustine, that ancient and venerable saint, maintained that "the heartof man is restless until it finds its rest" in Him.
Thomas Kelly, that recent and venerable saint, called it "the Lightwithin."
Blaise Pascal, that seventeenth-century defender of the faith, defined itas a God-shaped vacuum, an "infinite abyss," which "can be filled only withan infinite and immutable object ... God himself."
Hannah Hurnard, that pioneer of mountain byways, wrote of life on the"high places."
And George MacDonald, that nineteenth-century spiritual sage who sawhigh beyond the mists, said, "This is and has been the Father's work from thebeginning—to bring us into the home of his heart. This is our destiny."
Why, then, do so few discover the shape of that vacuum in their souls,the illumination of that Light residing within?
Why do so many of us resist the challenge to climb to the mountaintops?
Why is the home of God's heart so remote from where we live out ourdays? Why do we go to our graves with that destiny, that high calling, unfulfilled?Why is the human species so at odds with this inborn instinct of hisnature?
Allow me to offer three reasons.
One, unlike the animals, man has been given choice.
We share instinct with the animal kingdom, but ours has this difference—wemay ignore it. Animals can be no other than they are. Their instinctdefines their essence. Not so man. Man may, or may not, follow hisinstincts, for he has been provided an internal on-off switch that regulatesthe very centers of his being: the mind, where intellect develops; the heart,where emotions blossom; and the soul, where spiritual sensitivities ripen.
This switch, which controls each of the above, is located in that mostdecisive of regions: the will.
The switch is called choice.
The degree to which man chooses to follow his inborn, God-hungryinstinct will determine the extent to which mind, heart, and soul reach theirfullness of maturity and potential, and whether they operate with unity andharmony inside him.
Two, many factors of modern society work strenuously to dull the innerVoice that speaks of the Light, calling us toward that true and only destinationwhere our mind, heart, soul, and will can find rest, peace, and totalityof being.
Contemporary society and our practical peers of modernism tell us,"There is nothing out there." We may gaze upward all we want, they say, butwe will find nothing but blue emptiness. There are no heavenly peaks surroundingthis valley where man must dwell.
Indeed, they say, we must look within if we would discover the significancewe seek. Man himself is the emphatic and only center of the universe.
Three, sin, as intrinsic to the human disposition as the intuitive upwardbent of our inner sight, declares, as it has since the days of the Garden, thatthere is no one to whom we must look up, no one to whom we owe allegiance.This lie from sin's smooth lips grates contrary to our deepest intuition.Deep down, we know differently, yet it is a lie our lower natureeagerly receives.
You, and no one else, says the enemy, are the sole master of your fate.No one has the right to exact obedience from you. You have no need of anyOther. There exists no injunction to bow before a God, a Creator, a Lord.
The lie is independence. It comes from the lowest bowels of the earth,not the high realms of the heavenly mountains.
Instinct calls upward. The lie forces our gaze downward. In believingit, we fight against our very self.
Choice, modernism, and sin prevent us from apprehending our destinyand keep us from the destination and mountaintop sanctuary wherein wewere made to dwell.
Excerpted from God: A Good Father by Michael Phillips. Copyright © 2001 by Michael Phillips. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Copyright © 2001 by Michael Phillips. All rights reserved.
