There is a phenomenon in aviation known as a stall. A stall occurs where human and aircraft reach their limits and God’s law—what some would call natural law, or more specifically in this  case, the law of gravity—takes over; it happens at the point beyond which, regardless of our efforts, the will to climb higher is thwarted, the desire to go further is dashed—unless something changes. In short, a stall is when the plane literally stops flying because we have tried to climb too fast, too steep, or too high for current conditions.

When we approach this condition we receive warning signs; hopefully we respond by releasing back pressure on the control surface and initiating stall recovery. Only after proper recovery can we again move forward. Failure to heed the warning signs and recover will lead to disaster. As one of my first flight instructors aptly communicated: “Back is up; all the way back is down.” It seems contradictory, but the very action which elicits positive results can also be quite dangerous if we don’t have a healthy understanding of and respect for the way God works.  

While a stall is potentially dangerous, it is also the preamble to a perfect landing—given the right  conditions. Flying right at the edge of a stall is peaceful, exhilarating, empowering. Though many pilots loath this part of their flight training because it can be overwhelming and terrifying, learning where our own efforts end—and how to work within the laws of gravity—makes us more confident, more proficient pilots. This new level of skill, however, does not happen at the  moment of the stall or even stall recovery; it grows over time as we practice and our minds and  bodies slowly adapt to a new level of understanding.  

I am reminded of aircraft stalls as I train for my first-ever marathon at the age of 51.

After working up to and completing my first 10-mile distance, I was surprised when my GPS monitor declared my training status: “maintaining.” Why was my training status not considered “productive” now that I was moving into longer distances? Even more perplexing was the fact that my monitor stated, after sitting in a seminar then for two full days immediately following my 10-mile run, that my status was finally “productive.” How could it be that sitting was  more productive than running? Interestingly, two days later, still without a run, my status moved to “recovery.”

Like our man-made technologies, our bodies are bound by God’s law regardless of our efforts, our wills, or our desires. We can only make it so far before we have to heed the warning signs and back away from the edge in order to avoid injury. Relax some pressure. Recover. Like our aircraft and our skill levels in stall training, pushing our bodies to the limit while prepping for a marathon makes us more assured and more efficient. But training too hard or too fast for current conditions will only break us. In fact, there’s a saying in the running world: You can only train as  hard as you can recover. Recovery allows us to ultimately reach higher levels of performance.  

When we embrace what seems counterintuitive to the natural mind—that sometimes less is more—our ultimate progress is greater. It’s a bit of a dance, really. Like dancing at the edge of a stall; it’s good and natural to push in order to grow, but we only receive the blessings of strength, endurance, and confidence if we listen to and respect the wisdom of God’s law: As humans we can only go so far by will, desire, and effort before our own methods become useless and we must surrender to God’s way—we must back off and regroup while He does the work and our minds and bodies adjust to a new stage of fitness. 

A similar phenomenon occurs in our spiritual lives as well.

My progress through seminary school has been slow but steady. While there are plenty of people who are able to plow through seminary at 18 credit hours a term, that pace presents the potential danger–for me–of depending too much on my own efforts and not respecting God’s process.  

While salvation is immediate, sanctification is a life-long work—and both are a gift from God, which means the work is His; we are to receive: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is a gift from God” (Ephesians 2:8). And although receiving is an action word, it implies surrender and acceptance, and receptivity is key in gaining any progress in our faith walk. Surrender, acceptance, and receptivity do not happen immediately: “I am sure of  this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ”  (Philippians 1:6). 

God is profoundly enduring and faithful; it is we humans who are anxious, impatient, and unbelieving. We want it all, right now: understanding, wisdom, and knowledge—of who we are,  of who God is, and of what He wants from us. We don’t want to practice and be uncomfortable up against the edge of danger. We don’t wish to struggle or feel powerless. We do not love to push our faith muscles to the limit and then rest and wait for God to come and heal them, even  though the process yields stronger faith than before. We want the wisdom that comes only through intimacy, without making time for relationship.  

When it comes to God, we sometimes want too much, too fast, too soon. We can become overwhelmed and spiritually injured—weakened—without time to properly process and assimilate. In many endeavors, certainly in the walk of the believer, great progress can be made in the recovery, where we surrender and learn to operate within God’s law. And yet quiet, rest, and recovery are often seen as dirty words. They feel counterproductive to the natural mind. Madame Jeanne Guyon puts it like this: “So in love with what it does, the human does not believe anything is being accomplished unless it can feel, distinguish, and know all of its operations.”  

But God tells us to, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). We need to push to get uncomfortable in the acquisition of knowledge–to break down the old–but without recovery time, we crash and burn. The wisdom, the strengthening, the confidence, the faith come out of the quiet spaces where we pull back after the push to allow God to transform us—in His way and in His time. Madame Guyon continues: “Through grace, God invites the soul to the repose of  love . . . to stop the soul from the multiplicity of self.” This is the time and space where intimacy  grows, where human action and effort and noise cease so we can hear the wisdom of the One in charge of it all. This is where our spirit is able to receive the work of God and surrender to a new way of being.

That too much self-effort takes us into dangerous territory is nothing less than a truth proven repeatedly throughout human history. Faith—all of life—is a splendid dance with the Divine who must lead. And we must follow.