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January 13 - February 3, 2025
was already becoming aware of CFS (Christian fatigue syndrome) in my own life and couldn’t imagine willingly inflicting it on someone else.
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.
Paul refers to this process in Romans 12:2 when he says, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed [metamorphoō] by the renewing of your mind.” The Greek word metamorphoō is “metamorphosis”
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.
I 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.
In Christian tradition, this structured arrangement of spiritual practices is referred to as “a rule of life.” 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.
Our commitment to community and to spiritual friendship within that community is in itself a spiritual discipline that is of great significance to the spiritual life. Spiritual friendship is not primarily a social relationship that exists for the purpose of catching up over lunch
Rather it is a relationship that is focused intentionally on our relationship with God as viewed through the lens of desire. With such a friend we share the deepest desires of our heart, so that we can support one another in arranging our lives in ways that are congruent with what our hearts want most.
Your longing for love, your longing for God, your longing to live your life as it is meant to be lived in God?
desire is such a volatile thing. Are not my desires shot through with human deception and sinful urges? What if they overtake me and propel me down a path I ought not travel?
Jesus himself routinely asked people questions that helped them to get in touch with their desire and name it in his presence. He often brought focus and clarity to his interactions with those who were spiritually hungry by asking them, “What do you want? What do you want me to do for you?” Such questions had the power to elicit deeply honest reflection in the person to whom they were addressed, and opened the way for Christ to lead them into deeper levels of spiritual truth and healing.
We don’t know how long Bartimaeus had been spending his days begging by the side of the road, but on this particular day Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was passing by, and he had a sense of new spiritual possibility.
We love God because he first loved us. We long for God because he first longed for us. We reach for God because he first reached for us. Nothing in the spiritual life originates with us. It all originates with God.
there are desires within us that work against the life of the Spirit within us—desires rooted in selfish ambition, pride, lust, fear, self-protection and many other unexamined motives. These desires lurk within all of us, and that is why giving any attention at all to desire feels like opening up Pandora’s box. But it is even riskier to refuse to acknowledge what’s real within us, because whether we acknowledge them or not, these dynamics are at work
Their power only gets stronger the longer we repress them. How much safer it is for ourselves and everyone around us if we open up our desires in Jesus’ presence and allow him to help us sift through them.
As disturbing as it is to be exposed in this way, sometimes it is exactly what we need. For then Jesus can gently strip away that which is false and destructive in our desire and fan...
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“You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” (Matthew 20:23). The disciples’ ability to be this honest with Jesus about the deeper dynamics stirring within them was a new kind of intimacy that opened the way for him to begin the process of making right that which was not right within them.
Often, those who accomplish what they set out to do in life are not those who are the most talented or gifted or who have had the best opportunities. Often they are the ones who are most deeply in touch with how badly they want whatever they want; they are the ones who consistently refuse to be deterred by the things that many of us allow to become excuses.
The paralytic was full of excuses: “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus’ response, in effect, was “Never mind all that. Stand up, take up your mat and walk” (John 5:6-9). Then the paralyzed man reached within himself to that place of deep desire and deep faith and did what he was told. And somehow his willingness to follow his desire opened the way for him to experience Jesus’ healing power.
imagine yourself in the historical setting of the story of Bartimaeus as it unfolds in Mark 10:46-52, or imagine yourself in your own place of need. Read the story slowly, seeing yourself as the person needing something from Christ and calling out to him from the noisy crowd. How do you approach him or try to get his attention? What words do you use? What emotions do you feel? Imagine that in response to your cry, Jesus turns to you. Now you are face to face with one another. Allow yourself the full realization that you have Jesus’ complete attention (because you do!) and hear his question
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Most of us are not very good at sitting with longing and desire—our own or someone else’s. It feels tender. It feels vulnerable. It feels out of control. It is a place where one human being cannot fix or fill another, nor can we fix or fill ourselves. It is a place where only God will do.
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.
It is the practice that spiritual seekers down through the ages have used to experience intimacy with God rather than just talking about it.
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,
Silence deepens our experience of solitude, because in silence we choose to unplug not only from the constant stimulation of life in the company of others but also from our own addiction
This is our soul, that place at the very center of our being that is known by God, that is grounded in God and is one with God.
story about a priest who observed a woman sitting in the empty church with her head in her hands. An hour passed, then two. She was still there. Judging her to be a soul in distress and eager to be of assistance, at last the priest approached the woman and said, “Is there any way I can be of help?” “No thank you, Father,” she said, “I’ve been getting all the help I need until you interrupted!” In solitude we allow God to help us.
I am disturbed by my own compulsion to check e-mail late at night and first thing in the morning. When left unchecked, this lack of discipline imperceptibly robs me of rest in the evening and silent presence to God in the morning. 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. All of this convenience wears me out!
Exhaustion sets in when we are too accessible too much of the time.
No wonder we feel disconnected from God: 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,
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.
Most of us are more tired than we know at the soul level. We are teetering on the brink of dangerous exhaustion, and we really cannot do anything else until we have gotten some rest.
In Mark 6:30, Jesus invites his disciples to “come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”
the beginning of Mark 6, we discover that Jesus had just commissioned the disciples for ministry and had given them the authority to cast out demons, preach the gospel and heal the sick. These were exciting times, but also times of great spiritual exertion and emotional complexity,
before the miracle is even cleaned up, Jesus is back on mission and says to them, “I’ll finish up here. You go on ahead to that solitary place, because that is still what you need most” (see Mark 6:45).
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.
there are more subtle sources of inner exhaustion as well. We might be functioning out of an inordinate sense of “ought and should,” burdened by unrealistic expectations about what it means to be a good Christian.
We might have few or no boundaries on our work or availability to others and be driven by the feeling that we should be doing more because there is always more to do. 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.
solitude helps us stay attentive to the dynamics of spiritual exhaustion and attend to the deeper sources before they pull us under.
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. Eventually it leaks out in ways that are damaging to us and to others.
We’re busy trying to make stuff happen rather than waiting on God to make stuff happen. There are many Scripture texts that speak to the importance of waiting for God’s action and initiative; one of my favorites is a little verse in Exodus 14.
Moses responds firmly, “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” (Exodus 14:13-14). One of the fundamental purposes of solitude is to give us a concrete way of entering into such stillness, so that God can come in and do what only God can do.
The sad truth is that many of us approach the Scriptures more like a textbook than like a love letter.
With this kind of reading, the intent is to cover as much ground as possible as quickly as possible. Our emphasis is primarily on mastery, that is, controlling the text for our own ends—
The information-gathering mindset is very appropriate and helpful for a student in an academic or a learning environment. But when applied to Scripture, this approach does not serve the deeper longing of our heart—the longing to hear a word from God that is personal and intimate and takes us deeper into the love that our soul craves.
Information gathering may be exhilarating and even useful at times, but in the end our soul knows that there must be something more.
When we engage the Scriptures for spiritual transformation, on the other hand, we engage not only our mind but also our heart,
We read slowly so that we can savor each word and let its meaning sink in. Rather than rushing on to the next chapter so that we can complete a reading or study assignment, we stay in the place where God is speaking to us, contemplating its meaning for our life and for our relationship.
When we are falling in love with someone, we want to know everything about them. We are fascinated by every detail, every relationship and every event that shaped them. But the desire for intimacy moves us beyond fact finding to seeking understanding, connecting with that person emotionally
Lectio divina (translated “divine [or sacred] reading”) is an approach to the Scriptures that sets us up to listen for the word of God spoken to us in the present moment. Lectio divina is a practice of divine reading that dates back to the early mothers and fathers of the Christian faith. Referring to the material being read and the method itself, the practice of lectio divina is rooted in the belief that through the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures are indeed alive and active as we engage them for spiritual transformation (Hebrews 4:12).
