Creeping Christians

We are and remain such creeping Christians, because we look at ourselves and not at Christ; because we gaze at the marks of our own soiled feet, and the trail of our own defiled garments...Each, putting his foot in the footprint of the Master, and so defacing it, turns to examine how far his neighbor's footprint corresponds with that which he still calls the Master's, although it is but his own. Or, having committed a petty fault, I mean a fault such as only a petty creature could commit, we mourn over the defilement to ourselves, and the shame of it before our friends, children, or servants, instead of hastening to make the due confession and amends to our fellow, and then, forgetting our own paltry self with its well-earned disgrace, lift up our eyes to the glory which alone will quicken the true man in us, and kill the peddling creature we so wrongly call our self.

- George MacDonald

This post is the namesake of this blog, the flagship post, if you will. The quote is from a C. S. Lewis book where the author compiled different sayings and excerpts from one of his most favorite Christian authors, George MacDonald. This quote seems to me to be talking about how Christians look at others to determine how well they are doing in their attempt to follow Christ. It reminds me of the passage in Scripture where Jesus instructs us to take the plank out of our own eye before trying to help our brother get the speck out of his.

The term "creeping christian" hung in my mind for a while after reading this quote for the first time. When no matches came back during the blog naming process, I ran with it. The term makes me think that if we were better at looking to Christ instead of our circumstances (by the way, I don't really know how to do that, although I do believe it's possible), instead of wallowing in the fact that we sinned instead of repenting it and making the necessary amends as best we can , we would grow spiritually at a faster rate than we are right now. Many people because they judge what they see their brother doing against what they have done end up only creeping along, because they are most often judging their own life against another frail human, instead of THE example, what MacDonald calls "the footprint of the Master." I think Christians are too critical of others. Too often we criticize those walking closest to us, not realizing that we are defacing the image of God in ourselves, and calling the standard that we judge our neighbors by "God's example" when in reality it is just what we mistakenly think to be His example.