The Golden Key

In his delightful little fantasy, The Golden Key, George MacDonald recorded this incident. “Then the Old Man of the Earth stooped over the floor of the cave, raised a huge stone from it, and left it leaning. It disclosed a great hole that went plumb-down.
‘That is the way,’ he said.
‘But there are no stairs.’
‘You must throw yourself in. There is no other way.’”

MacDonald is figuratively expressing what Jesus said more plainly, “… any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:33). It is the same message that he gave to the ruler who asked “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus told him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Luke 18:22, ESV). The thing he lacked was an absolute surrender to the Lord.

In MacDonald’s tale, the little girl stared at the old man for an entire minute (she thought). It was in reality an entire year. Then she cast herself down.

Some of us have been staring at the Lord a long time, shocked by his demand for complete surrender. He is patient; but there is no other way. We all need the lesson learned by Saul of Tarsus.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:7-11, ESV)