Alan Fadling's Blog, page 2

A Personal Journey Through Doubt, Trust, and Mystery

Guest Blog by Brenda Renderos

If God is loving, then why _______?

 

Fill in the blank. For me, it’s come in many forms: Why does God allow injustice? Why do children suffer? Why does hate so often seem to win? Why didn’t God save my loved one?

 

In my younger years, I thought I had the answers. I had learned well what I was taught—the idea of free will, how God gave us the choice to choose our paths, and that the consequences of those choices could sometimes lead to pain. I also was taught that because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden, we live in a fallen world, and everything bad that happens is part of that brokenness. Those answers felt right, enough to carry me through the confusion and to offer some solace to others who were questioning with me. When someone would ask, I could reply with certainty.

 

But as time passed, I began to sense something shifting inside me. Over the years, as I sat with others in their pain and witnessed the depths of their struggles—families being torn apart, children suffering, hate running rampant in the world, the sting of death claiming loved ones—I found myself sitting with that same question: Why?

 

I could feel the weight of the question in my own heart. The deepest burden came from walking with others who were asking the same question and barely holding on. Their hearts echoed mine: Why? It was no longer a distant, abstract question—it had become personal. And no matter how much I tried to offer an answer, it never felt like enough. I had been taught to always be ready to give an answer. I had been trained to rightly divide the word of truth, to show myself approved, and to be prepared. But more often than not I felt unprepared.

 

Recently, I went on a retreat, thinking I could gain some clarity there. I found myself on a bench overlooking the ocean, the horizon hidden in a thick fog that rolled in every morning and stayed strong throughout the day. The fog wrapped the entire ocean in mystery. I spent days sitting there, lost in the fog, my mind tangled in the same question: Why?

 

On the last morning of the retreat, I again sat on that bench, staring into the fog to try and glimpse the ocean. It was as if the sea had vanished, swallowed whole by the mist. I felt a wave of frustration rise in me. But then, amid the quiet, something shifted inside of me.

 

I heard an inner voice, clear and simple, that spoke five words:

“But you know it’s there.”

 

I stared at the fog, uncertain at first. The ocean was hidden from sight by the thick mist, but somehow I knew it was there. I had seen it before—felt its waves, tasted the salt on my lips, heard the crash of waves against the cliffs. The fog simply obscured it, but it was still there. I didn’t need to see it at that moment because I had experienced it.

 

And so that voice spoke again:

“But you know it’s there.”

 

Those words didn’t didn’t instantly chase away the fog or my questions the fog or to my questions. But they steadied me. They called me to trust what I had experienced of the ocean, even when I couldn’t see it. It was a statement of truth: I know the ocean is there. It was a challenge to not let the fog—the mystery and the confusion—distract me from what I know to be true. And it was an invitation to trust, to surrender to the fact that the fog was beyond my control but my response to it was not.

 

This is how I now approach the why question in my life. I don’t have the answers to every hurt, every injustice, or the suffering of the innocent. I don’t know why some prayers seem to go unanswered and why others seem to be met with silence. I can’t always explain the fog—the confusion and the weight of things we don’t understand.

 

But just as I know the ocean is there, even when I can’t see it, I know God is present.

 

In the fog I find steady ground. I know God is with me, even in the things I can’t explain. And though the fog of questions may feel suffocating at times, I hold on to the truth of what I’ve already experienced of him. The challenge is to trust what I know, even when I can’t see the answers.

 

God invites us to surrender, to walk with him in the mystery, and to remember that even in the fog, we are not alone.

 

The answers may not always come, and that’s okay. In the quiet, in the fog, I can simply say, I don’t know. But I know God is there. And sometimes that’s enough.

 

For Reflection:

How do you respond to the mystery and confusion of life when you can’t see or understand God’s plan?
What have you experienced about God’s presence that helps you trust him in times of uncertainty?
How can you practice surrendering to God’s presence and walking with him through the unknowns of life?

 

 

UL #353: Silencing Anxiety: Jesus’ Path to Inner Stillness

 

In this popular replay episode, Alan Fadling invites us into a deeply personal and practical reflection on anxiety, rooted in themes from his new book, A Non-Anxious Life.

Alan shares his own lifelong journey with anxiety—how it shows up in his thoughts, emotions, and even his body—and how Jesus has been teaching him a better way: a path of peace. You’ll hear stories of travel disruptions, anxious thoughts, and tender moments with backyard birds that reveal God's faithful, tangible care.

This episode offers more than ideas—it’s an invitation to embody peace, to let the presence of God displace worry at the deepest levels.

Whether you wrestle with anxiety every day or simply long for more inner stillness, Alan’s words will meet you with compassion and hope.

 

Learning to Love the Quiet: How Real Growth Happens

Blog by Alan Fadling

What if your deepest spiritual growth doesn’t happen on the mountaintop but in the quiet, ordinary valleys of your everyday life? What if prayer that feels dry or uninspired is not a sign of failure but a sacred invitation into deeper trust and transformation? In his book When the Well Runs Dry, Thomas Green gently nudges us away from our hunger for excitement in prayer and toward a quieter, truer communion with God. This isn’t about losing faith—it’s about learning to recognize God’s presence in the slow, hidden work of grace that often unfolds in silence and simplicity.

 

Here are a few more insights that I have gleaned from Green’s book in addition to the two I shared a couple of weeks ago.

 

Genuine Spiritual Growth Prefers the Ordinary

Green says, “One sure mark of genuine spiritual growth, I think, is a growing preference for the ordinary days of our life with God. We gradually begin to realize that it is when nothing seems to be happening that the most important things are really taking place.”*

 

In the beginning of our faith journey, we want exciting or stimulating or intense prayer. We want some “wow” in our prayer.

 

In our spiritual youth, we love exciting experiences. We always want something new. We crave novelty. We long to be stimulated. But Green is saying that as our prayer life deepens, we come to realize that most of our spiritual growth happens in our everyday life rather than in the dramatic moments. Mountaintop experiences can be catalysts for change and growth, but the actual growth happens in the mundane moments of our ordinary days.

 

So often what we think is dryness in our prayer life may be a sort of withdrawal from our attachment to excitement. In such moments, we may be tempted to think that nothing is happening in our spiritual growth if we aren’t having exciting experiences or gaining profound insights or doing dramatic deeds. All of these are wonderful gifts God may give us occasionally. But a long, maturing spiritual life happens mostly in the unexciting, unimpressive moments of our day-to-day life.

 

All of this helps us realize that speaking with God and looking within are not necessarily the same thing.

 

Prayer and Introspection

Green suggests that “one of the great hazards of the interior life is that we go to find God and we end up talking to ourselves. There is a fine line between prayer and introspection.”†

 

When I first read that passage, my initial thought was “Yikes!” I can look back and see many prayers that consisted more of me talking to myself in front of God rather than me speaking with the living God. Or I was saying a prayer for other people in the room to hear more than I was speaking with God. It’s a professional hazard for pastors like me, but maybe you identify with that experience even if you aren’t a pastor.

 

There is a kind of praying that can be an unhelpful, me-focused introspection rather than a fruitful, God-focused communion. There is, of course, an inner reality to deepening prayer, but that is because Christ is in us, abiding in us. Prayer goes deeper as it remains connected to the Christ who makes himself at home in our hearts.

 

This is why when I enter into prayer it helps me to begin with a few unhurried moments of quiet attention. When I do this publicly, I sometimes feel the discomfort in the room at such silence—as though we were on the radio and I was creating dead air. But a moment or two of stillness helps me remember what I’m doing and who I’m speaking with.

 

Finally, one of the most helpful things I’ve learned from When The Well Runs Dry is that…

 

Beginners Try Too Hard in Prayer

 As part of an ongoing personal study project in the spiritual classics, I recently reread The Life of St. Teresa of Avila. In it, she compares deepening prayer to four ways of watering a field: (1) carrying buckets back and forth from a well, (2) using a pump to draw water from the well, (3) planting near a river or stream and using it to irrigate the field, and (4) welcoming the rain.

 

This metaphor is Teresa’s way of describing how our prayer moves from focusing mostly on our own efforts to responding more and more to God’s work.

 

Thomas Green draws on Teresa’s insights and quotes these words from her autobiography: “Beginners in prayer, we may say, are those who draw up the water out of the well: this, as I have said, is a very laborious proceeding, for it will fatigue them to keep their senses recollected, which is a great labor because they have been accustomed to a life of distraction.” ‡

 

I believe it was Teresa’s metaphors that gave Green the title for his book. In the first two stages of prayer we get our water from a well. But what if the well runs dry? We then need to look for other ways to water our garden.

 

If the well never runs dry, though, we may not stop using our early approaches to prayer. We may never deepen our conversation with God.

 

The hard work of early prayer may weary us because we believe that prayer is something we are doing for God. Some people say they can’t imagine spending half an hour in prayer. I can understand that, especially if you’ve never prayed for even five minutes. But this also has to do with your vision of prayer.

 

If you think prayer is mainly you coming up with something to say to God for thirty minutes, that can feel daunting. But what if prayer is more like thirty minutes of conversation with a good friend over coffee? Thirty minutes in that setting might not feel like long enough.

 

It’s certainly true that in the beginning prayer requires a lot of effort to overcome our habit of self-distraction. We live in a time when attention deficit is rampant. Too many of us spend hours every day distracting ourselves. Much of modern life seems to thrive on distraction as our attention is being captured and monetized by algorithms. Moving deeper in prayer will likely require us to become comfortable with what would feel boring to us as beginners. We can learn not to sacrifice our attention on the altar of popular amusements.

 

Conclusion

I want to leave you with this encouragement: Prayer is not a spiritual task to master but a loving relationship to nurture. It’s not about perfect words or flawless practices—it’s about presence, connection, and trust. God is already at work in you, inviting you to come closer, listen more deeply, and rest in his faithful love.

 

If your prayer life feels dry or challenging right now, know that this is not the end of your journey—it’s an invitation to go deeper. God is faithful, even in silence. He’s forming you, often in ways you cannot yet see.

 

So take heart. Be patient with yourself and trust the Spirit’s counsel in this process. Whether you’re drawing water from the well or waiting for rain, God is with you, and he delights in every moment you spend seeking him. Keep drawing near and let him lead you into the fullness of his presence.

 

For Reflection:

When was the last time you sensed God’s presence in something seemingly ordinary?
Have you ever mistaken introspection for prayer? What helped you return to true conversation with God?
What does it look like for you to rest in God's presence rather than strive in prayer?

 

*Thomas H. Green, When the Well Runs Dry (Ave Maria Press, 1979), p. 24.

† Green, p. 30.

‡ Green, p. 38.

 

UL #352: Feeling Overwhelmed by Injustice? Start Here (A Christian Guide for the Heart)

 

If you’ve ever wrestled with how your personal faith connects with the pain and injustice in the world, this episode offers a path forward, not in politics or performance, but in deep spiritual formation.

Alan sits down with transformation life coach and ministry leader Brenda Renderos for a tender, honest conversation at the intersection of soul care and justice, especially racial justice. Drawing from her years of experience walking with individuals toward greater wholeness, Brenda shares how a deeply rooted faith can lead to healing, redemptive engagement with our neighbors.

Together, they explore:

How inner transformation and outward justice are connected

Why justice isn’t about guilt or shame but about love and presence

What to do when justice work feels overwhelming or exhausting

And how to take one Spirit-led step forward at a time

This episode invites you to slow down, listen deeply, and consider how Christ might be forming you for justice that flows from the heart.

 

Brenda’s Invitations to Dig Deeper:

The prophets call out religious devotion that ignores justice (Isaiah 58, Amos 5). 

Jesus admonished the Pharisees for tithing religiously but neglecting 'justice, mercy, and faithfulness' (Matthew 23:23).

Is my spiritual life making me more just? And is my work for justice making me more Christlike? 

What is shaping my view of justice? Am I looking at it through a cultural lens, a political lens, or a biblical lens?

A great way to begin is by simply sitting with scripture. Read passages like Isaiah 1:17, Micah 6:8, or Luke 4:18-19, and ask: 

What does God say about justice? 
What does this reveal about his heart?
What is his invitation for me in this season?
What is one small way I can stay engaged this week, even if it feels slow?

 And trust that even the small things matter in God's bigger story.

 

 

The Hidden Power of Meaningful Repetition in Your Spiritual Life

Blog by Gem Fadling

Shrink wrap. That was the only thing between me and the latest smooth tones of Karen Carpenter. I would peel off the plastic, feel the cover, and with great anticipation open the album jacket.

 

If I was lucky, it was a double cover and would open up like a book. Words spread from left to right against a background of faded images of Karen and her brother Richard, and I would read every single one.

 

I’d set the record on the turntable, place the needle in the first groove, turn it up loud, and lie on the floor. I would let the entire album unfold over the next 45 minutes or so, reading every word as it was sung, getting a feel for the flow of the songs.

 

This was my “liturgy” every time I played a new album. And it was a good one. All the time in the world, taking in the music, understanding the meaning and the order of the songs, enjoying Karen’s deep, velvety voice.

 

Of course, calling this routine a “liturgy” is a stretch, but it was my structure—my way of listening.

 

Most of my early Christian life, I was told that liturgy was bad. It was referred to as “meaningless repetition,” not heartfelt worship like our church practiced. But even people who don’t consider themselves liturgical have a liturgy.

 

According to Google, liturgy is “a form or formulary according to which public religious worship, especially Christian worship, is conducted.” That’s a fairly dry definition compared to what I now experience week by week in the form of meaningful repetition.

 

Every week my heart has a chance to realign with my core beliefs. I participate in centuries-old ways of worship. Scripture is read—both Old Testament and New Testament. Silence follows to take in what was heard. A sermon is shared based on the passages.

 

Then we recite together the Apostles’ Creed, a beautiful synopsis of everything I hold dear. After that is a time for much-needed confession. I have a chance to get down on my knees and speak out loud with my own mouth how I fell short that week. I receive forgiveness and blessing.

 

Then comes one of my favorite inventions ever: Passing the Peace. Hearing the words “Peace be with you” multiple times from people around me has a way of softening the edges of the week.

 

The service culminates in the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist), a most appropriate focus of each and every week. The table is set, the wine is poured, the bread is laid out. I go forward, receive the bread and cup, and return to my seat.

 

I then watch as each person receives and is blessed. Little ones are prayed over. I feel as though I share in each person’s blessing as they make their way through the line.

 

This is my weekly liturgy with my church community. There is a simplicity, a rootedness, a sweet and peaceful spirit that pervades our worship. This is liturgy at its best.

 

Another beautiful aspect of formal liturgy is there is only one “star of the show.” It is Jesus himself and the Eucharistic table, which in our church is placed front and center. The worship leader and even the pastor stand off to the side when they speak. We are continually pointed to Christ visually, symbolically, and literally.

 

Whether we call ourselves liturgical is neither here nor there. We all have communal liturgies in our forms of public worship. We might even have a personal liturgy or rhythm of life. What practices, rhythms, and patterns do you have in place to keep your heart and mind aligned?

 

In this season of my life, I firmly believe that meaningful repetition is good. A classic illustration of this is extending love to others. When is a good time to stop saying “I love you”? I can assure you, the repetition of that phrase never gets old. That’s because I mean it. It’s meaningful repetition.

 

I want every part of me—my mind, heart, soul, and body—to have a sense of significant rhythms. The patterned refocusing and realigning of my soul is as real to me now as the need to shower or brush my teeth.

 

I love resting on a process that has stood the test of time. And yes, even more than my “liturgy of Karen Carpenter,” my soul is at home in the rhythm of our church community’s weekly liturgy.

 

For Reflection: 

What liturgies (meaningful repetitions) do you have in place as you seek to remain mindful of how God is nurturing your soul?
In what ways have you embraced meaningful repetition in your work of formation?
How do you remain focused on God and his ways day by day, week by week?

 

UL #351: Daily Rhythms with Jesus (John Mark Comer)

 

What is the Christian life really about? And what is the church meant to be? These foundational questions often reveal how deeply our assumptions have been shaped by culture more than by Christ.

In this episode of the Unhurried Living Podcast, Alan Fadling shares a rich conversation with John Mark Comer, originally aired when his book Practicing the Way was newly released. John Mark is a teacher, writer, and founder of Practicing the Way and has spent years exploring what it means to be an apprentice of Jesus in the post-Christian West.

Formerly the founding pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland, OR, John Mark now develops spiritual formation resources for churches worldwide. Together, we explore how spiritual disciplines form us not just for today, but for eternal living—and how church communities can reclaim the Way of Jesus in a distracted, fast-paced world.

 

 

Prayer Isn't Working?... Or Is It?

Blog by Alan Fadling

How do you respond when your prayer life feels dry? Do you ever wonder if you’re actually in touch with God or just saying words into the air? During seasons like that in my own life of prayer, I (Alan) have found a lot of help from a recent spiritual classic on the topic: When the Well Runs Dry by Thomas Green.

 

In it, Green explores what happens when prayer moves beyond our initial striving efforts and becomes more about receptivity and surrender. Have you ever felt like prayer is just you doing all the talking—or wondered where God is when the excitement fades? Where is God when our prayer feels too quiet? What assumptions might we need to revisit in moments like this? Let’s consider how prayer is less about effort and more about encounter.

 

On my eight-day silent retreat last summer, I took along a few of Thomas Green’s books to reread, including this one. He’s been a trustworthy guide, helping me to navigate a life of what the book’s subtitle calls “prayer beyond the beginnings.” I’ve found many books on prayer that help us get started. There are fewer books that provide guidance for some of the challenging places we may encounter on our journey of communion with God.

 

I’d like to share a couple of key insights from this book that helped me and that I believe will help you in your own deepening communion with God.

 

Prayer Is a Relationship

Green reminds us of the way many of us begin in prayer when he says, “Praying generally meant meditation, something we do, our activity of analyzing the gospel and making applications to our own life situation and resolutions as to how we would serve Christ better. It was all very good as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. Specifically, it did not allow for the possibility that prayer might become less and less what we do and more and more what God does in us.”*

 

When we begin, we assume that prayer is mostly something we do. We focus mostly on our activity, our words of request, our concerns expressed. We read and study the Bible. We meditate on what we see in scripture. We offer our concerns for others. We give thanks. We sing praise. And all of this is part of prayer—the human part.

 

It's good to remember that God is not a stoic and silent judge listening wordlessly to our testimony at the front of a courtroom. God is a loving and present Father listening closely to his daughters and sons.

 

Prayer is more conversation than monologue. In prayer, we learn that the Spirit is speaking to us personally through our reading and reflection on scripture. God is offering us guidance and counsel for our actual daily lives. God is leading us into truth—into reality. God is expressing his heart toward us. God is at work. Over time, we realize our praying is not mostly at our initiative but is in fact a growing receptivity and responsiveness to God’s initiative and work.

 

Sometimes God lets our prayer life grow dry to invite us to question some of our assumptions as beginners. Many of those assumptions have to do with our idea of the God to whom we pray. This leads to a second insight that is helpful for us to remember.

 

Our Image of God Is Not God

 Is that sentence intimidating? It doesn’t have to be. It’s good for us to acknowledge that our ideas of God will always be smaller and less perfect than the reality of who God is. We all have misguided ideas of God that God wants to refine.

 

On this theme, Green says that “the time will surely come when the well of our imagination runs dry and we must either be convinced that God is not the image we have of him or else we will take the loss of the image for the loss of God himself—and we will be tempted to abandon prayer as a hopeless endeavor.”†

 

Part of our life of prayer is growing to know God. In that, it helps us to acknowledge that none of us know God perfectly. Elton Trueblood, who was like the Dallas Willard of the mid-twentieth century, spoke about our need for “epistemological humility.”

 

Epistemology is a fancy word for the philosophy of how we know what we know, how knowing works, and what knowing is. In this regard, humility is being able to admit that we do not know everything. It’s being willing to say that we could be wrong. Too many people are proud instead of humble in their knowing. But since we are all imperfect in our knowledge of God, pride does us harm rather than good.

 

When it comes to prayer, we learn that the God to whom we were praying in our early years may not be as true an image of God as we thought. My own early vision of God was one that was more angry than kind, more impatient than patient, more harsh than gentle. Again, when our prayer life runs dry, we start asking questions we didn’t when prayer felt like it was going okay.

 

In the dryness, I may begin to question an image of God I’ve been clinging to. Losing that image isn’t losing God, but losing some of my unhelpful assumptions about God. That turns out to be good news—hard but good.

 

A dry season in which my doubts feel stronger than my trust is an invitation to rediscover the God who is always seeking to make himself known to us. Instead of losing God and giving up on prayer in those seasons, we are called to be receptive and responsive, open to what God wishes to say or show to us. 

 

When our prayer well runs dry, it may be that God is replacing our old images of who he is by inviting us to know him more truly. Prayer that once felt full and active may now feel quiet and bare—but that quiet can be holy ground. We’re not being abandoned in these moments; rather, we’re being invited to release our grip on certainty, to surrender assumptions, and to open ourselves afresh to the God who is more loving, more present, and more mysterious than we first imagined. Dryness can become a threshold—not an ending but a deepening.

 

For Reflection:

What image of God might be quietly loosening its hold on you in a season of dryness? How might God be inviting you into a truer knowing of him?
In what ways might you shift from striving in prayer to a posture of receptivity—trusting that God is already at work in the silence?

 

 

*Thomas H. Green, When the Well Runs Dry (Ave Maria Press, 1979), p. 11.

† Green, p. 20.

 

 

UL #350: Soulful Leadership: Creating Culture From the Inside Out (Ed McManness and Matt Fogle)

 

What happens when the deep inner work of spiritual formation begins to shape the way we lead others? In this episode, Gem welcomes Ed McManness, General Director of Frontier Ventures, and Matt Fogle, Chief Development Officer at Frontier Ventures, for a rich conversation at the intersection of soul care and leadership.

 

As leaders, it's easy to focus solely on strategy, productivity, and results—but what if transformation into Christlikeness was the foundation of our leadership? Ed and Matt share stories from their own journeys, offer practical wisdom for cultivating healthy organizational cultures, and reflect on how to lead from a place of abiding rather than striving.

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

How spiritual formation can directly impact leadership decisions

Practices for fostering presence over pressure in your leadership

Rhythms and boundaries that protect leaders from burnout

How to shape a spiritually formative organizational culture—even in the face of resistance

 

About Our Guests:
Ed McManness is the General Director of Frontier Ventures, a mission organization serving global leaders who bring the gospel to the least reached. His leadership is rooted in decades of experience and a deep commitment to spiritual formation.

Matt Fogle serves as Chief Development Officer at Frontier Ventures and is also a Soul Care Guide with Unhurried Living. Matt is passionate about helping leaders thrive through emotionally healthy and spiritually grounded practices.

If you're a leader longing to align your inner life with your outer leadership, this episode will speak directly to your journey.

 

 

UL #350: Surprising Cure for Burnout (Ed McManness and Matt Fogle)

 

What happens when the deep inner work of spiritual formation begins to shape the way we lead others? In this episode, Gem welcomes Ed McManness, General Director of Frontier Ventures, and Matt Fogle, Chief Development Officer at Frontier Ventures, for a rich conversation at the intersection of soul care and leadership.

 

As leaders, it's easy to focus solely on strategy, productivity, and results—but what if transformation into Christlikeness was the foundation of our leadership? Ed and Matt share stories from their own journeys, offer practical wisdom for cultivating healthy organizational cultures, and reflect on how to lead from a place of abiding rather than striving.

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

How spiritual formation can directly impact leadership decisions

Practices for fostering presence over pressure in your leadership

Rhythms and boundaries that protect leaders from burnout

How to shape a spiritually formative organizational culture—even in the face of resistance

 

About Our Guests:
Ed McManness is the General Director of Frontier Ventures, a mission organization serving global leaders who bring the gospel to the least reached. His leadership is rooted in decades of experience and a deep commitment to spiritual formation.

Matt Fogle serves as Chief Development Officer at Frontier Ventures and is also a Soul Care Guide with Unhurried Living. Matt is passionate about helping leaders thrive through emotionally healthy and spiritually grounded practices.

If you're a leader longing to align your inner life with your outer leadership, this episode will speak directly to your journey.

 

Lead From the Inside Out: Why Your Inner Life Matters More Than Your Methods

Blog by Gem Fadling

In our PACE leadership and spiritual formation training, our friend and colleague Matt Fogle leads a beautiful session on congruence. We talk about this in many ways at Unhurried Living—our inner and outer lives must match. This is one of the heartbeats of healthy, authentic spiritual leadership.

 

This is the central flow of John 15 to which we often point. Jesus, the vine, invites us to remain or abide in him. From that central connection, fruit does emerge. But the emphasis for each of us is on the abiding, not the producing. Yes, fruit that lasts bursts forth, but only because the branch remains on the vine.

 

I carry this idea deep within me. If you only learned one thing from me, this would be at the top of the list. There is a flow from God to me, within me, and then through me.

 

How do I remain aware of and connected to this holy process?

 Spiritual formation is the process by which we are changed into the image of Christ. In my early years as a Christian, we called this discipleship. But whatever you call it, it involves the actual transformation of the person, not the mere adding of knowledge.

 

Many people are willing to settle for knowledge and to consider that “growth.” Sure, we must gain knowledge to learn. But this is only the beginning of the process. Without life experience, our knowledge cannot become wisdom—lived grace. Our real invitation is to change. This is such good news. I get to change! I don’t have to stay within my weaknesses, blind spots, and sins.

 

Philippians 1:6 rises to the surface: “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” This is the God-initiated process in which I live, and I am so thankful for it.

 

In Matt’s talk on congruence, he shares one of the most meaningful quotes I have ever heard on the importance of our inner life in prayer. It’s from E. M. Bounds:

 

“The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men [and women]. . . . What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men [and women] whom the Holy Spirit can use—[people] of prayer, [people] mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through [people]. He does not come on machinery, but on [people]. He does not anoint plans, but [people]—[people] of prayer.” (“Power Through Prayer,” in The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds on Prayer, p. 447)

 

This excerpt highlights the importance not of methods and what Bounds calls “machinery,” but of real people who pray and cooperate with the flow of the Holy Spirit. This is the organic way God moves.

 

Even though I may be part of a structure (which at this point is the organization known as Unhurried Living), it is really Alan, me, and our team who are the heart of the structure. We are people, and what you experience from Unhurried Living comes from our lived experience with God. We are trying to share all the goodness and wisdom God has granted us over the course of our adult lives.

 

I’ve run into trouble whenever I’ve placed the structure of Unhurried Living at the center. This is when I become anxious, stressed, overly ambitious, and competitive. That is not how I desire to live my life. Yet when I remember that we are simply human beings trying to love and serve other human beings, my heart slows its pace, and I reconnect with my truest desire—loving and serving others with gladness and singleness of heart.

 

It can be tempting to attach to machinery (structures) and methods because those things seem easier to quantify and manage. But real formation in people’s lives is messy, indirect, and requires patience.

 

Paul beautifully describes all of us, connected to the Spirit, at our best:

 “The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along. Who ever knows what you’re thinking and planning except you yourself? The same with God—except that he not only knows what he’s thinking, but he lets us in on it. God offers a full report on the gifts of life and salvation that he is giving us. We don’t have to rely on the world’s guesses and opinions. We didn’t learn this by reading books or going to school; we learned it from God, who taught us person-to-person through Jesus, and we’re passing it on to you in the same firsthand, personal way.” (1 Cor. 2:10-13 MSG)

 

The Spirit, from the depths, shares with us God’s heart. The three persons of the Trinity let us in on their life and gifts to us. We learn from the Trinity and then we pass it along. This is central to spiritual leadership. God teaches us directly through the life of Jesus. We follow him, become like him, and pass on the best of this connection in our interactions and influence.

 

For Reflection: 

There is a flow from God to me, within me, and then through How do I remain aware of and connected to this holy process?
Ponder the contrast Bounds sets up between machinery and methods and people of prayer. How are you inspired by this? How might it influence your focus?
How does 1 Corinthians 2:10-13 encourage you today? How might you pass along what you’ve been given by God?