Tag: john mark comer

Spiritual Formation is for Everyone

Photo by Taylor Heery on Unsplash

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, Practicing the Way: Be With Jesus, Become Like Him, Do As He Did, p. 71

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?

A Way of Love, Joy, and Peace

Image by Arjun Jaisawal from Pixabay

There is an emotional and even spiritual weight to life; we all feel it, especially as we age. An easy life is a myth, if not a red herring–the by-product of an advertising-drenched and social media-duped culture. Life is hard. Full stop. No comma, no but, no endnote. All the wise men and women of history have said as much; no new technology of substance or pill will ever erase humanity’s fall. Best-case scenario, we mitigate its effects as we advance Jesus’ return. But there’s no escaping the pain.

Why do you think there’s so much addiction in our world? No just substance abuse but more run-of-the-mill addictions to porn or sex or eating or dieting or exercise or work or travel or shopping or social media or even church?

And yet, even church can be an addiction, a dopamine hit you run toward to escape a father wound or emotional pain or an unhappy marriage…but that’s another book.

People all over the world–outside the church and in–are looking for an escape, a way out from under the crushing weight to life this side of Eden. But there is no escaping it. The best the world can offer is a temporary distraction to delay the inevitable or deny the inescapable.

That’s why Jesus doesn’t offer us an escape. He offers us something far better: “equipment.” He offers his apprentices a whole new way to bear the weight of our humanity: with ease. At this side. Like two oxen in a field, tied should to should. With Jesus doing all the heavy lifting. At this pace. Slow, unhurried, present to the moment, full of love and joy and peace.

An easy life isn’t an option; an easy yoke it.

John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry [affiliate link], p. 87-88

Jesus not only offers us “equipment.” He offers us himself. And he not only offers us himself in his incarnation and on the cross, or from his place at the right hand of the Father, or from heaven. He lives “in” his disciples. Our life is hidden with Christ in God, even as we are called to “put on” or “clothe” ourselves in Christ.

Comer is playing here with Matthew 11:29-30, driving home the notion that we must join our life to Jesus’ life, we must walk in step with him as his students, apprentices, and disciples, and learn his way. I’m leading a retreat this weekend, and this book will serve as grounds for discussion. We will explore the spiritual disciplines of solitude and silence, Sabbath, simplicity, and slowing. Notice, in all of these disciplines, all of life must be ordered in such a way that creates space for their keeping and observance. They require ordering and differentiation. They necessitate clear choices and make more plain the pace, narratives, and commitments of the everyday culture and habits of life that subvert, compete with, and challenge the pace, story, and way of life in the kingdom of God.

In Disciples Indeed, Oswald Chambers wrote, “I have no right to say I believe in God unless I order my life as under His all-seeing Eye.” The gospel we often preach focuses on life in the world to come. But the good news of Christ is not only concerned with what’s next. It has implications for life as it is lived today. Following Jesus will not make life easier in the immediate. In some ways, it may make it harder, at least in the short term. But in the long run, faith in Jesus is wisdom, not only for the resources that will be near at hand for this life as a citizen in his kingdom, but for the ways in which it will prepare us to serve in God’s great universe in the coming world without end. Our souls are made for eternity. Apprenticeship to Jesus prepares us for all that eternity will hold, not only for lasting fellowship with God, but for service.