Every day, we are bombarded with diversions. Social media creates an image to live up to as influencers instruct us on the best way to live our lives. Political parties wrestle for power, imploring the people to follow them on the correct path while dragging the opposing side through the mud. Hollywood crafts stories and, while some are good, others promote a wicked lifestyle cloaked in goodness.
The world is fallen and humanity promotes sin, reveling in wickedness disguised as good. It seems easier to indulge in the joy of the world rather than confront the fallenness that plagues the Earth. However, every “key to happiness” that the world offers is false. The only key to joy and freedom is Jesus and His redemptive love.
Blaise Pascal, a seventeenth-century mathematician, provides a profound outlook on the relationship between diversion and faith in his Pensees. His thought on this topic is extraordinarily relevant today as Christians everywhere fight against the darkness of the world and grow in their faith.
Pascal identifies diversion as one of the main barriers between man and faith. He argues that it keeps men from seeing what they truly are: Wretched. The avoidance of the curse brought upon man from Original Sin keeps the individual from recognizing that God is necessary for true happiness and salvation. He writes, “Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.”
Rather than confront things such as death, wretchedness, and ignorance, humans utilize fictitious diversions to distract from the real world. These diversions come from outside of God and encourage dependence on distraction to maintain happiness. This happiness, however, is not lasting or true, because the wretched horror of the world will only continue to make things go wrong and cause distress.
Diversions create a false sense of security and, as Pascal argues, keep one from coming to terms with their wretchedness. This false security makes man think, “I don’t need God.” Therefore, these distractions must be disposed of if the groundwork of faith is to be laid. According to Pascal, faith is a gift from God, and yet the grounds must be prepared for the seed of faith to take root. The weed of diversion must be pulled out in order for faith to be received. How do we do this? “…[W]e can know God properly only by knowing our own iniquities,” Pascal writes. And the only way to come face to face with wretchedness before God is to quash the illusion of our distractions.
While our salvation in Jesus can never be taken away, it is still important for us as Christians to continue to “prepare the grounds” to grow in faith and further our individual walks with God. Colossians 3:9-10 states that “…you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” Because we are made new in Christ, we must act following His image, and rid ourselves of these self-imposed constructs.
The maintenance of the grounds must continue throughout our entire Christian walk. Even with the seed of faith planted, it is important that Christians heed Pascal’s advice and continue to deny the diversions of the world. When we stumble, let us repent, allowing God to wash us clean. In this way, we become dependent on Him rather than on this fleeting world.