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The Spirit is revealed in our genuine hopes for ourselves and for the world.
The Spirit is revealed in our genuine hopes for ourselves and for the world.
Do we know that to desire and seek God is a choice that is always available to us?
The more I refused to acknowledge the longing for more, the deeper and wider the emptiness became—until it threatened to swallow me up.
The more I refused to acknowledge the longing for more, the deeper and wider the emptiness became—until it threatened to swallow me up.
The emphasis on human depravity in many religious circles makes it hard to know if there is anything in us that can be trusted.
Sometimes the language of longing is used to stir the emotions of a crowd, but most often what is offered in response is found wanting in the end.
Our longing for a way of life that works is most often met with an invitation to more activity, which unfortunately plays right into our compulsions and the drivenness of Western culture.
The longing for significance, the longing for love, the longing for deep and fundamental change, the longing for a way of life that works, the longing to connect experientially and even viscerally with Someone beyond ourselves—these longings led me to search out spiritual practices and establish life rhythms that promised something more.
Perhaps one of the most basic things we need to understand about spiritual transformation is that it is full of mystery. We can be open to it, but we can’t accomplish it for ourselves.
Something much more primal is at work. Something in the very essence of this little being says, It is time. And so the caterpillar obeys this inexplicable inner urging and enters in.
Even though it is normal for each and every redeemed person to experience spiritual transformation, something about it will always remain a mystery to us. It is one thing to be able to tweak and control external behaviors; it is another thing to experience those internal seismic shifts that change the way I exist in this world—from a worm crawling on my belly to a butterfly winging its way to the sky.
That kind of change is something only God can do.
cannot transform myself, or anyone else for that matter. What I can do is create the conditions in which spiritual transformation can take place, by developing and maintaining a rhythm of spiritual practices that keep me open and available to God.
What shapes our actions is basically what shapes our desire. Desire makes us act and when we act what we do will either lead to a greater integration or disintegration within our personalities, minds and bodies—and to the strengthening or deterioration of our relationship to God, others and the world.
A rule of life is a way of ordering our life around the values, practices and relationships that keep us open and available to God for the work of spiritual transformation that only God can bring about. Simply put, a rule of life provides structure and space for our growing.
A rule of life gives us a way to enter into the life-long process of personal transformation. Its disciplines help us to shed the familiar but constricting “old self” and allow our “new self” in Christ to be formed—the true self that is naturally attracted to the light of God.
Spiritual friendship is not primarily a social relationship that exists for the purpose of catching up over lunch or an occasional lunch or a golf outing.
it is a relationship that is focused intentionally on our relationship with God as viewed through the lens of desire.
The reason we are not able to see God is the faintness of our desire.
Although the experience of longing and desire is often bittersweet, it reminds me that I am alive in ways that I want to be alive.
The longing for solitude is the longing for God. It is the longing to experience union with God unmediated by the ways we typically try to relate to God.
Solitude is a place. It is a place in time that is set apart for God and God alone, a time when we unplug and withdraw from the noise of interpersonal interactions, from the noise, busyness and constant stimulation associated with life in the company of others.
solitude is a place inside myself where God’s Spirit and my spirit dwell together in union.
How have I been wanting to be with God, and how has God been wanting to be with me?
We are not very safe for ourselves, because our internal experience involves continual critique and judgment, and the tender soul does not want to risk it.
impact of technology on our spirituality.
If we are not careful, technology has a way of compromising our ability to be present to ourselves, to God and to each other—all of which are fundamental elements of the spiritual life.
I can become exhausted by the intrusion of the media and technology into every corner of my life, resulting in constant overstimulation of body, mind and emotions.
we are rarely able to give him our full attention in solitude and silence. Thoughtful reflection is constantly sabotaged by the intrusion of cell phones, pagers and e-mail messages. No wonder our human relationships are so unsatisfying as they get reduced to snippets of interrupted, disembodied phone conversation. What feels like convenience is actually robbing us of those things we value most. We are left with bits and pieces of everything rather than experiencing the full substance of anything.
I am noticing that the more I fill my life with the convenience of technology, the emptier I become in the places of my deepest longing.
I long to be connected with my authentic self, even though it means being inaccessible to others at times.
Constant noise, interruption and drivenness to be more productive cut us off from or at least interrupt the direct experience of God and other human beings, and this is more isolating than we realize.
Because we are experiencing less meaningful human and divine connection, we are emptier relationally, and we try harder and harder to fill that loneliness with even more noise and stimulation. In so doing we lose touch with the quieter and more subtle experiences of God within.
Solitude is an opportunity to interrupt this cycle by turning off the noise and stimulation of our lives so that we can hear our loneliness and our longing calling us deeper into the only relationship that can satisfy our longing.
Decisions were weighing on me, but I was so exhausted I didn’t trust my own judgment. My ability to love and trust was worn so thin from the wear and tear of life that I feared I was becoming deformed rather than transformed. Spiritual longings were stirring powerfully within me, and I was exhausted from trying to manage such
unwieldy forces.
In Mark 6:30, Jesus invites his disciples to “come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”
He is concerned about the bigger issue of how they will sustain their spiritual life rather than being distracted by outward successes. Without wasting any time at all, he invites them to experience solitude as a place of rest in God.
I’ll finish up here. You go on ahead to that solitary place, because that is still what you need most”
Jesus knows how quickly our passions, even the most noble, can wear us out if we’re not careful. I think he also understands that the sources of our exhaustion are many and complex and often we are completely unaware of how they are taking their toll.
Since we’re not always sure how to live with our humanness, we feel guilty when we are tired, ill or grieving and try to shove it down rather than attend to it. But it takes energy to repress these aspects of our humanness, and eventually the effort itself wears us out.
While our nonstop pace may be tied to genuine passion for what we do (as it was in the disciples’ case), we can reach a point where our genuine gifts and passions wear us out because we don’t know when to stop.
When deeper levels of exhaustion set in, there is a slippage in our spiritual practices, because we do start to feel that we are beyond hope and we don’t have energy even for the disciplines and rhythms that are normally life giving for us.
Over time, we fail to receive the natural replenishment that flows from a rhythm of meaningful spiritual practices, and we suffer inner drought.
solitude helps us stay attentive to the dynamics of spiritual exhaustion and attend to the deeper sources before they pull us under.
This “being with what is” is not the same thing as problem solving or fixing, because not everything can be fixed or solved. Rather, it means allowing God to be with me in that place and waiting for him to do what is needed. In silence my soul waits for you and you alone, O God. From you alone comes my salvation.
When we don’t attend to our vulnerabilities and instead try to repress it all and keep soldiering on, we get weary from holding it in.
Another reason we are so tired is that we are always working hard to figure things out rather than learning how to cease striving, how to be with what is true in God’s presence and let God be God in the most intimate places of our life—which is, in the end, the only thing that will change anything. We’re busy trying to make stuff happen rather than waiting on God to make stuff happen.
Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. [And here is my favorite part.] The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still”
