Lenten observances begin tomorrow. Many Christians will gather for worship on Ash Wednesday to mark the beginning of the season and enter a period of renewed commitment. This season focuses on repentance, prayer, fasting, endurance, and discipleship to Jesus.
Baylor University asked me to write a brief article introducing Lent to those who are unfamiliar. For the fourth year running, I helped Baylor’s Truett Seminary put together a Lenten Devotional Guide. You can find the entries here. If you’d like to receive the daily reflections by email, sign up by clicking the floating yellow button in the lower right-hand corner. Lastly, the full guide can be viewed and downloaded here, in which I have written a welcome and introduction.
The rays of truth proceed from the sun, through Augustine’s head, to his heart, which he holds in his hand on the right side of the painting. This image is an apt illustration of Augustine’s thought. Truth doesn’t end in the head but makes its way to the control center, which is the heart. He understood the heart as being central to our living. What someone loves is more important than what they can consciously know or express. Truth is foundational but insufficient.
I’d nuance this a little differently. I’d say truth is foundational and indispensable, and for it to have full transformational effect, it must move beyond thought to affection. And, while we might read the painting from left to right, and thus understand the process as such, there is also a relationship running in the other direction, from right to left. It is vital, therefore, for both heart and mind to be fixed on truth. If we love the wrong things, our thinking becomes distorted. If we think the wrong things, our hearts become subject to damage and discouragement. But if heart and mind are compelled by what is true, together, the entire person is transformed.
While listening to a recent episode of Cal Newport’s Deep Questions podcast, I heard Cal speak about the importance of deliberate practice (it may have been on this episode, but I’m not totally sure). He noted that the pursuit of any meaningful activity is hard. Thinking is hard. Concentration is hard. Writing is cognitively demanding. Reading a book can be a challenge, especially if your attention span has been trained by social media algorithms. Watching a full length feature film could be difficult if you only watch selections from TikTok or YouTube Shorts.
Cal made a connection to a book called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This book published in 2008 and was a national bestseller. I read it in 2010.
Csikszentmihalyi had studied the mental states of those who became completed absorbed in a challenging but doable task, which he labeled a flow state. Those experiencing a flow state exhibit high levels of concentration, are clear on the goal, may experience a changed relationship to time (speeding up/slowing down), find the activity rewarding and even easy at the time, are completely present in the moment (losing self-consciousness), and have a feeling of mastery. Professional athletes were cited as clear examples.
In basketball, this is the player with the hot hand, and in baseball, this is the pitcher or batter who is “locked in.”
This concept was popularized and idealized. If you wanted to be happy, if you wanted to find satisfaction, you needed to engage in activities where you could get in the zone, where you could easilyexperience flow.
Csikszentmihalyi did find that different types of people can enter flow states more easily. But this does not mean that experiencing flow is easy or that flow states can be readily induced. Finding flow requires mastery, extensive practice, and experience. It may be easier when coupled with natural ability, but it often takes time to develop the neural pathways that make it possible.
Flow states are nice and they can be had. But they can be elusive or difficult to achieve.
Deliberate practice differs in that it can be done even when it is hard. The discomfort is the very thing that makes the effort meaningful and rewarding, and, eventually, is the very thing that can move the practitioner from being an amateur to adequate to good to excellent. “Getting better can be painful sometimes,” as Newport observes.
As I reflected on this concept, I thought about my own experiences with the spiritual disciplines. I thought about the feedback I have heard from those seeking to grow as disciples of Jesus. I have often heard people say that they find it hard to read their Bible, or that they become frustrated when they become distracted in prayer. I have heard people grouse when they become irritable while fasting, or sleepy while practicing Christian meditation. I’ve heard people say they like the concept of the service, but then find it difficult to selflessly and gladly help others in practice. When you are on a tight budget, cheerful giving can be a tall task, and when you have an abundance of possessions, simplicity can seem impossible. Any spiritual discipline requires discipline, and discipline is hard.
Jesus described his way as an easy yoke. He said that the weary can come to him and find rest. But he also said that following him would require the taking up of a cross daily, and that being his disciple would require losing one’s life before it could be regained and found. Being renewed day by day can be simultaneously joyous and difficult. Growth involves growing pains. But growing pains don’t last forever. God’s objective is to bring us to maturity, to bring the work of sanctification to completion.
My message is this: if you encounter difficulty when seeking God, accept it. Don’t quit. Don’t be discouraged. Be deliberate. Be intentional. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Pray. Learn. Grow. The discomfort is part of the journey. If it helps, refer to spiritual disciplines as spiritual practices. Then, practice. Deliberately.
As you go along, you’ll find nourishment. God will sustain you. God will feed you. God’s grace is in abundant supply. You can ask for it. God is generous in giving it. And as you walk the path of faith and metaphorically flex spiritual muscle, some things that at first seemed impossible will become easier over time.
Meaningful activity is hard, even in the spiritual life. And sometimes, it is the difficulty that deepens the meaning, that enriches the reward, that sweetens the experience, and that increases the gratitude and wonder concerning what God is doing, will do, and has done.
“Baseball is for watching. From April to October I watch the Red Sox every night. (Other sports fill the darker months.) I do not write; I do not work at all. After supper I become the American male — but I think I do something else. Try to forgive my comparisons, but before Yeats went to sleep every night he read an American Western. When Eliot was done with poetry and editing, he read a mystery book. Everyone who concentrates all day, in the evening needs to let the half-wit out for a walk. Sometimes it is Zane Grey, sometimes Agatha Christie, sometimes the Red Sox.”
I’m in “knowledge work,” meaning I work with ideas and read ideas and think about ideas and write about ideas and talk about ideas all day long. My work is thought work. I think before I’m on the clock and I think after I’m off the clock. I also think while I’m on the clock. Thinking takes place in meetings, sometimes in a journal, other times in a Word document, too often in email or on Teams, enjoyably so when according to schedule in a classroom with engaged students, periodically while on the phone, very occasionally from a pulpit, and most often in passing conversations. My area is Christian spirituality, Christian spiritual formation, ministry practice, and church leadership. I’m living this stuff, even when I’m not working on this stuff.
The product or result of this kind of work can be difficult to quantify. Sometimes the product is concrete, such as a paper or an article, even a blog post. Sometimes it is concrete but difficult to measure in terms of quality or effectiveness, such as a sermon or a lesson. A colleague, Elizabeth Shively, tells the story of a pastor who, after preaching, responded to congregants who told him “good sermon today” with the witty reply, “it is probably too soon to tell.”
What I want to remember here, and what I want to share, is that thinking takes a lot of energy, and when energy is expended, it can’t be renewed without rest. Thinking can be quite intense. As Donald Hall observes, there is a need to shift gears after long periods of concentration. We need to take a break. Our minds need to wander, to relax, to engage with something different. An activity like walking can help us get out of our head and back into our bodies. Hall writes that we need to let the half-wit out for a walk after a day of concentration. This can take the form of reading mysteries or Westerns or watching sports. It can also take the form of a literal walk.
Hall’s renewal activity of preference was watching baseball. I go with movies and television, and reading stuff other than theology, biblical studies, and practical ministry books. I like action movies and science fiction. I like watching the English Premier League. I don’t have the same attachment to soccer as I do the major American sports, where I get wrapped up in fan allegiances to the Cowboys, Rangers, Mavericks, Royals, or Chiefs. I watch stand-up comedy or listen to a podcast that make me laugh. I go on walks. I exercise. Sometimes I work in the yard or clean the pool.
But honestly, when I do the fun stuff–the gear shifting, refreshing, relaxing, renewing stuff–I can feel guilty about it. I think I should be doing more, you know, work. It doesn’t help that as soon as I’m done with one thing, I’m on to the next thing. Once I scale one mountain peak, my eyes are on the next one. Without fully appreciating the view from the top, and having not yet completed or even begun the descent, I’m already planning the next climb.
There are a couple of spiritual disciplines that apply here. One is sabbath keeping. Another is celebration. A third is confession.
A family commitment we’ve articulated together concerns establishing sustainable rhythms of work and rest. I’m working on routines and rhythms that help me identify my most important priorities and projects and establishing timelines for completion that are reasonable and realistic. When I say I’m working on them, I mean I’ve been working on them for the duration of my adult life. Now in my forties, I’m working on them with greater intention and clarity than even before. I want to work at a human pace. These processes are always being fine-tuned and refined, even as I make adjustments that are bringing me closer to where I want to be. But life is in flux. The moment I’m dialed in, something changes.
Recent initiatives: I’ve built in time each week to assess what I’ve gotten done so I can celebrate and what I can calendar time to work on in the week ahead. Beyond weekly plans, I’ve added a monthly plan, widening the time scale so that I can think about the things that would make me most happy to finish over a longer period. Stuff that comes up that is new and that I know I can’t get to immediately I place under a “future” heading. These are projects that are interesting and could be important but are not urgent. I clean up this list every month, promoting some projects to active, and deleting others altogether, having determined some things are not mine to do or were just passing fancies.
A growth area, I think, is formalizing my shut down rituals, actively putting aside “work” and formally closing down the shop for the day. I’ve got some ideas that I think will help, like shutting off my computer in the evenings, establishing a routine window of time during the week to turn my phone off, and choosing to shift gears in a way that names the change of focus, allowing for enjoyment, guilt free.
When it is the time for working, I work. When it is time to cease, I need to learn to celebrate and release. More work will always be waiting in the morning. I want to enjoy the downshift, and not burn out the engine.
Author and speaker Brennan Manning has an amazing story about how he got the name “Brennan.” While growing up, his best friend was Ray. The two of them did everything together: bought a new car together as teenagers, double-dated together, went to school together and so forth. They even enlisted in the Army together, went to boot camp together and fought on the frontlines together. One night while sitting in a foxhole, Brennan was reminiscing about the old days in Brooklyn while Ray listened and ate a chocolate bar. Suddenly a live grenade came into the foxhole. Ray looked a Brennan, smiled, dropped his chocolate bar and threw himself on the live grenade. It exploded, killing Ray, but Brennan’s life was spared.
When Brennan became a priest he was instructed to take on the name of a saint. He thought of his friend, Ray Brennan. So he took on the name Brennan. Years later he went to visit Ray’s mother in Brooklyn. They sat up late one night having tea when Brennan asked her, “Do you think Ray loved me?” Mrs. Brennan got up off the couch, shook her finger in front of Brennan’s face and shouted, “Jesus Christ–what more could he have done for you?!” Brennan said that at that moment he experienced an epiphany. He imagined himself standing before the cross of Jesus wondering, Does God really love me? and Jesus’ mother Mary pointing to her son, saying, “Jesus Christ–what more could he have done for you?”
The cross of Jesus is God’s way of doing all he could do for us. And yet we often wonder, Does God really love me? Am I important to God? Does God care about me? And Jesus’ mother responds, “What more could he have done for you?”
Today is Ash Wednesday. It is also St. Valentine’s Day.
You may be wondering if you are loved. You are. John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Ash Wednesday is a day of repentance, a day to be reminded of our frailty, mortality, and failures. But it is also a day of love. It is a day we are marked with a cross. It is a day we are reminded of the cross of Christ, who came in weakness to give us strength, who took on mortality to give us immortality, and who took our sin and failure upon himself in order to extend to us the gifts of restoration, forgiveness, and fellowship with God.
We have been embraced by way of a costly love. What more could he have done for you?
In The Secret of Guidance, F. B. Myer states, “it is well to acquire the habit of speaking to God as to a present friends while sitting in the house or walking by the way. Seek the habit of talking things over with God–letters, your plans, your hopes, your mistakes, your sorrows and sins.”
Having begun as a child in my earliest efforts at prayer with simple, spoken petitions, I later moved to prayer in silence, confining my conversation with God to the realm of thought and movements of the heart–unless I was leading a group. Silent prayer was beneficial yet difficult, as I often found myself easily distracted. As I continued in leadership, I found that spoken prayer came with greater ease, joy, and a fuller sense of God’s presence. Praying with others, aloud, made me glad. But I onlyspoke with God aloud while with others, not when I was alone, as Myer recommends.
I’ve been experimenting with this suggestion, speaking aloud to God. Most often, I have done this while on a walk in my neighborhood, alone. That seems to be the best place, and the best time. After suggesting that we speak to God aloud, Myer counsels, “Not perhaps always, because our desires are often too sacred or too deep to be put into words.” Silent prayer can be appropriate. Spoken prayer, also, may be more suitable in certain settings. Discernment is needed.
Myer also notes that when we talk to God about everyday concerns, “Things look very different when brought into the calm light of His presence.” I have found that speaking with God, aloud, does change my perspective. I notice how I’m phrasing things. I’m hearing what I am saying even as I form the words. I’m more mindful of who I’m speaking to, more patient in the silences, more open to hearing a response. There is a movement in me.
Try it. See what happens.
What do you notice? What changes in how you speak, and in how you listen?
Spiritual formation is not optional. Every thought you think, every emotion you let shape your behavior, every attitude you let rest in your body, every decision you make, each word you speak, every relationship you enter into, the habits that make up your days, whether or not you have social media (if you do, how you use it), how you respond to pain and suffering, how you handle failure or success–all these things and more are forming us into a particular shape. Stasis is not on the menu. We are either being transformed into the love and beauty of Jesus or malformed by the entropy of sin and death. . . To believe otherwise is an illusion; and to give no thought to this is to come dangerously close to wasting you life.
John Mark Comer claims that spiritual formation is not optional. He is right. We’re all undergoing a spiritual formation.
This truth has given shape to my work. Spiritual formation courses are required under every degree plan at the seminary. I spend a lot of time with students talking about spiritual formation–what it is, why it matters, how it works, the difference it makes, and what it looks like when it is distinctly Christian.
We require these courses to draw attention to the fact that all ministers have received a spiritual formation, are undergoing a spiritual formation, and are becoming a particular kind of person. We ask, “Is the life you are now living leading you toward becoming more like Christ, or not?” This question is not only pertinent for those with a ministerial vocation, but for all people, inside and outside of Christian congregational fellowship.
We do not start from scratch. I often tell our students that they have been on the receiving end of formation and malformation. I assure them that God has already equipped them with much that is good through experiences of worship, fellowship, Bible study, service, prayer, meditation on God’s Word, and so on, as well as in interactions with God during the commonplace proceedings of daily life. Students easily agree that not all of their experiences have been positive. They have been wounded by others in the Christian community, some in very traumatic ways. Life in the wider world has also brought suffering and hardship, instances where it has been very difficult to discern or understand God’s action, or the seeming lack thereof.
This is not only true for students in the seminary. As Comer writes, this is true for us all. We would all benefit from careful reflection on the spiritual formation we have received, giving thanks for what is good and appropriately grieving what was wrong, thanking God for all that is praiseworthy and petitioning God for healing and restoration where wounds remain.
We would also benefit from reflection on where our current life trajectory is taking us. Do we possess a quiet confidence that we remain in step with the Holy Spirit, who is even now guiding us more fully toward conformity to Christ? Have we beheld Jesus, sharpening our vision of who he is and open to his instruction as our teacher and friend? Have we firmly fixed our heart upon the Father, deriving our ultimate sense of identity and belonging from an unshakeable conviction that we belong foremost to the family of God?
Are we taking daily steps to be “transformed into the love and beauty of Jesus?”
If you are not sure, ask God for help. God tends to respond to requests like these.
God’s grace is abundant in supply, and those who seek God will surely find him. Spiritual formation is for everyone. It is ongoing. It is happening. Where will yours take you? Toward God? Or toward something else?
A few are bent on hell. Most are simply adrift. But some have begun to walk the Way of Jesus with Jesus, who is the Way. His invitation remains open to all: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Christ offers to lead you personally. That’s quite an offer. Is there one better?
[W]e don’t need to understand every atonement theory to know the transforming power of the Cross. Its undeniable power to transform us is a simple fact, confirmed by human experience.
A Catholic archbishop described how three mischievous teenage boys decided to play a trick on their local priest. While he was hearing confessions one day, they took turns going into the confessional and admitting to doing all sorts of fantastic things that they had made up.
A young boy volunteered to be the first one. However, the priest was not to be fooled and said to him, “I want you to make this penance for what you have done. Go to the front of the church, to the cross on which Jesus hangs, look Jesus in the face, and say three times, “All this you did for me, and I don’t give a damn.”
The teenager did it once, twice, and then, when he began repeating the sentence a third time, broke down in tears, and his words simply became, “You did this for me.” He left the church facing a new direction.
When the archbishop finished the story, he said, “The reason I know this is that I was that young man.”†
The way of Christ is the way of the Cross. In Luke 9:23, Jesus said, ““Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”
But before we take up our cross, it is helpful to recall Jesus took up his. He carried his cross and died upon it for us.
Why?
Love.
The love of Christ displayed in the Cross has the power to turn us around, to transform us, to renew us, to embolden us, and to empower us. It is a reminder of our calling to die daily, to share in the sufferings of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:31, 1 Peter 4:12-19).
What moves us to respond to this call? “You did this for me,” as Jean-Marie Lustiger discovered. Or as Paul wrote, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
How do we keep this before us? By actively bringing the story of the Cross to our minds, by thinking carefully and at length about God’s action at Calvary. We return to the Gospels. We read the accounts.
Hudson recommends being reminded by way of symbol. We can place a small cross at our desk, on the dresser, in a pocket, some place where we will see, touch, and encounter it, thus being reminded of the Cross.
The reminder is twofold. First, Christ loves you with a costly love. And second, Christ calls you to cross-carrying discipleship. Ephesians 5:1-2 says: “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Walk in the way of love. It is the way of the Cross.
_______________________ † Hudson’s citation: “The boy’s name was Jean-Marie Lustiger. He was admitted to the Catholic church the following Easter. And he became the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris. True story. He died on August 5th, 2007”; “You Did That for me?” Father Paul’s Homily Blog, March 28, 2010, http://frpaulhomilies.blogspot.com/2010/03/you-did-that-for-me.html.
One of the special gifts that Dallas gave me was the space to ask him questions. The first time I asked whether I could raise some questions with him, he responded with his typical generosity. We set one whole evening aside and sat together in our living room. I had with me a yellow pad to write down his responses to my long list of prepared questions. These ranged from theological issues that had come up for me, ethical dilemmas around some of the political issues facing us in South Africa at that dark time in our history, and the more practical concerns of what it meant to follow Jesus in the nitty-gritty of daily life.
Looking back on that evening now, I realize that my opening question was designed to impress him a bit. I asked him if he would provide me with a reading list of the most formative books that he had read. I recall how the conversation unfolded.
“I suggest you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John” was his reply.
Somewhat disappointed by this response, I told him, “Okay, I have got that down. Are there any other books you can recommend that I read?”
This time he was more emphatic in his response. “My suggestion is that you take the next twenty years or so to read and meditate on these four Gospels. Read them repeatedly, immerse yourself in the words and deeds of Jesus, and commit to memory as much as you are able.”
This is simple advice for the Christian journey. Many of us think that the truly transformative literature is found outside the Bible. There is much to be gained from reading broadly within the Christian tradition, its theology, history, and spiritual writings. But there is no substitute for the Bible itself, and particularly the accounts of Jesus found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Read them. Study them. Meditate on them. Invite Jesus to meet you through them. The writings will teach you. But look for more than information. The writings will move you. But look for more than inspiration. Open yourself to God as you read. It’s intimacy and encounter that you want. That’s what brings the possibility of change and transformation.
We must bear our crosses; self is the greatest of them; we are not entirely rid of it until we can tolerate ourselves as simply and patiently as we do our neighbor.
If we die in part every day of our lives, we shall have but little to do on the last.
What we so much dread in the future will cause us no fear when it comes, if we do not suffer its terrors to be exaggerated by the restless anxieties of self-love.
Bear with yourself, and consent in all lowliness to be supported by your neighbor.
O how utterly will these little daily deaths destroy the power of the final dying!
It’s the daily dying that gets me. It can be so unpleasant! And it is much easier to think of our crosses as something external to us, like an illness, or physical suffering, or a person who annoys us or gives us trouble, than it is to think of our greatest cross as the one thing we have with us no matter what we suffer and no matter where we go: ourselves.
But François Fénelon is correct. If we die to ourselves each day, all that will be left is the small, final step from physical death to the fuller, more complete experience of eternal life that is had when a person in Christ passes from the earthly to the heavenly realm.
The little, daily deaths are worth dying. Learning to die them is part and parcel of the spiritual journey. The school in which we learn to die them is the school of Jesus Christ, who not only calls us to this kind of cross bearing, but who preceded us on the way.
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