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We let God love us into people of love.
As a general rule, we become more loving by experiencing love, not by hearing about it in a lecture or reading about it in a book.
And in Paul’s paradigm, this transformation happens as we “contemplate,” as we gaze, as we look at God, looking at us, in love.
Yet contemplative prayer isn’t looking to get anything from God; it’s just looking at God. “I look at Him, He looks at me, and we are happy.”
Unfortunately, many of us still view following Jesus as a means to an end—a ticket to heaven, to nice feelings, to a successful, upwardly mobile life, and so on. We still don’t get it: He’s the end.
Other days (more often than not) my mind is like a “banana tree filled with monkeys,” as Henri Nouwen once said[49]—it’s
Prayer (that is, being with Jesus) is our primary portal to joy. It’s the best part not just of each day but of life.
The phrase “solitary place” is one word in Greek: erēmos. It can be translated “deserted place,” “lonely place,” or “quiet place.”[58] In Luke 5,
Henri Nouwen once said, bluntly but accurately, Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life.[63]
“Spend one hour a day in adoration of your Lord and never do anything that you know is wrong.”[64]
The call to apprentice under Jesus is a call not to do more but to do less.
Our souls were not created for the kind of speed to which we have grown accustomed. Thus, we are a people who are out of rhythm, a people with too much to do and not enough time to do it….
Ronald Rolheiser has said, “Every choice is a thousand renunciations.”[73] Meaning, every yes is a thousand nos.
“Don’t waste your life on triviality. Remember what matters. Life is fleeting and precious. Don’t squander it. Keep your death before your eyes. Hold eternity in your
heart.” Benedict was urging the monks to be joyfully present to the miracle of daily life.
As Ronald Rolheiser put it, “We are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion.”[4]
Now we’re to goal #2 of an apprentice: Become like Jesus.
The monks have long called this process imitatio Christi, or “the imitation of Christ.” Today we call it “spiritual formation.”
Spiritual formation isn’t a Christian thing; it’s a human thing.
The irony of our “be true to yourself” culture is that everyone ends up looking the same.
the process of being formed into people of love in Christ.
“Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.”[12] (As if the best we can hope for is a little tune-up on the way to the afterlife.)
did for us; it’s also something we do with him:
Christlikeness is possible, but it’s not natural.
Most Christians never mature beyond stage three, which is a very basic level of maturity; very few reach their full potential in Christ.[27]
both my personal and pastoral experience, the problem is not that people don’t want to change (most do) or aren’t trying to change (most are); it’s that they do not know how to change.
The fallout of this ignorance is several well-known phenomena across the Western church:
Losing strategy #1: Willpower
That’s because willpower is a finite resource; we only have so much of it each day. (Mine is normally used up by about noon.)
The genius of Jesus’ ethical teaching was that you cannot keep the law by trying not to break the law.
Self-effort and grace are partners, not competitors locked in a tug-of-war for glory.
Losing strategy #2: More Bible study
we Protestants are easily blinded by other Western assumptions, such as René Descartes’s famous claim, “I think; therefore I am.”
But the philosopher James K. A. Smith said it well: “You can’t think your way to Christlikeness.”[32] Because, again, practicing the Way of Jesus is less like learning quantum physics and more like learning aikido.
It’s the problem of how to get what you already know and deeply desire into your central nervous system, how to overcome habits of fear that are woven into your body’s neurobiology.
My point is that church attendance, good sermons, and regular Bible study are all good—more than good, essential. But we must be honest: By themselves, they have a very poor track record of yielding a high level of transformation in large numbers of people.
Losing strategy #3: The zap from heaven
waiting for a “download” from heaven to radically change them in an instant.
Problem #1: Sin
Because of our hyper-individualistic culture, we often miss this last dimension, but Scripture’s testimony is unequivocal: Our environment has warped us.
Until we come to see sin as far more than the breaking of judicial laws, we will likely remain stuck in whole-life dysfunction.
Salvation is not just about getting back on the right side of God’s mercy through judicial acquittal; it’s about having your soul healed by God’s loving touch.
Confession is a core practice of the Way,
As the activist James Baldwin once said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”[44]
Problem #2: You’ve already been formed
How we become who we become is a sacred mystery, taunting the brightest minds of both science and spirituality, so we must approach this question with a spirit of genuine humility.
The stories we come to believe give shape to a thousand daily decisions, they give shape to what we do (or don’t do) and who we become.
Paul is writing to disciples of Jesus in the city of Rome, a formation machine that makes L.A. pale in comparison.
But notice also that the default setting is conformation, not transformation.
Examining my daily liturgy as a liturgy—as something that both revealed and shaped what I love and worship—allowed me to realize that my daily practices were malforming me, making me less alive, less human, less able to give and receive love throughout my day.[50]
