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.
I work on a university campus. It is a beautiful place. I’m thankful for the opportunities to leave my office, walk the grounds, and be surrounded by beauty. There are green spaces and trees, fountains and memorials, the sound of bells chiming the hour, birds, squirrels, cultivated gardens. I also have memories. I completed my undergraduate degree here. My parents and other members of my extended family attended this school. I have a connection to the history. I enjoy my time on campus.
One of the things I notice when I walk the campus is the number of people, mainly students, who walk with their cell phone in hand. If they are not walking, they are standing. When a line forms at the entrance to a cafeteria, for example, most people are gazing at their smartphone. I see far more people with a smartphone in their hand than I see walking with others, talking, or just walking by themselves, hands free and eyes forward.
The smartphone keeps many people captive to digital distraction, whether it be through social media, streaming video, or text communication. I see headphones and earbuds, too, which allow people to consume music, podcasts, audio books, and the like while on the go.
This isn’t all bad. But I do wonder what it is doing to our capacity to think deeply and experience our world more fully, to be present to the creation, to God, others, and ourselves. I’m concerned. I’m concerned for what it might mean for the soul.
It is very difficult to stop any habit through white knuckling, bearing down and trying to quit by sheer force of will. Even if you wanted to stop looking at your phone, once you are habituated to it, it’s tough to break away.
It is easier to change if you understand habit loops, which move from cue to routine to reward, and make a change that brings you to a more desirable outcome. The cues will keep coming. When you notice the cue, you change the routine. The reward, or outcome, is then something better than what you would have received by following the old routine.
We reach for our smartphones because our brains are looking for something to do. We get bored. That feeling of boredom, that restlessness, is our cue. Notifications and feeds alleviate our boredom through a steady stream of stimulation. Scrolling and checking becomes our routine. When there is something new, we have a reward. Even when there is not something new, we have the reward of knowing we have not “missed” anything. It’s a shallow reward, a fleeting reward, but it is a reward nonetheless.
Alternatives to Distraction: Christian Spiritual Disciplines
What could be more meaningful?
Is there a better reward on offer, one that could be received through a new routine, leading to a richer and fuller experience of life?
I work at a Christian university. I think the Christian faith offers wisdom that can help us avoid distraction and grow in our relationship with God. How is that wisdom received? From God, through the Christian spiritual disciplines.
The Christian spiritual disciplines offer several alternatives to digital distraction. Rather than stare at a smart phone, here are five Christian spiritual disciplines you can try to better connect with God, others, and what is taking place within your soul.
1. Contemplation
The Christian discipline of contemplation helps us to wake up to the presence of God in all things, and can be done by practicing God’s presence. We seek to truly see and gaze on life as it is experienced, leading us to be more sensitive to God’s revelation. We are also actively led to resist our compulsion to know and do everything, instead resting content as God’s beloved. This discipline can be entered through simple prayer. Instead of gazing down at a smartphone, leave it in your pocket. Place your hands together in a the traditional posture of prayer. Hold your eyes level and say, “God, help me be attentive to all things, and to you.”
2. Retreat
The Christian discipline of retreat involves both short and extended periods of time for quiet companionship with and listening to God. A university campus is a place of study and activity. It is also a place with spaces to sit, listen, watch, and rest. After disengaging with a class and its content, find a moment to be still, with the phone away. Ask God to be with you in your thoughts. Notice your feelings. Jot down your insights. Receive grace. Rest in God.
3. Unplugging
The Christian discipline of unplugging is less known. It meets a modern challenge. If you have trouble looking at your phone, turn it off. Stow it in a backpack, rather than in your pocket. If you have a ten minute walk from class to your apartment, use this time to be fully present to God and those around you. Smile at those you see. Say hello to those you know. Notice your surroundings. It will feel uncomfortable, at first. When you power your phone back on, you can respond to any calls or text messages you may have missed. And maybe you’ll do so a little differently, because you have spent a few minutes being attentive to God.
4. Mindfulness/Attentiveness
The Christian discipline of mindfulness or attentivenessgrounds us firmly in the present moment. When practicing this discipline we are fully alert to God. We pay attention to what we’re thinking, feeling, and experiencing, and consider these thoughts, emotions, and experiences with God. We breath more deeply. We turn over our worries and anxieties. We savor God’s gifts. You may have heard of this discipline, though not as a Christian practice. What’s the Christian difference? We do it with the Triune God as our focus and end.
5. Silence
The Christian discipline of silence is not only about refraining from speaking. It is a way of actively engaging with God by forsaking noise and distraction. Adele Calhoun writes, “Silence is a regenerative practice of attending to and listening to God in quiet, without interruption and noise. Silence provides freedom from speaking as well as from listening to words or music. (Reading is also listening to words.)” Silence is received. We enter silence. We actively open our ears, eyes, hearts, and minds to God. We wait. Our smartphones keep us from entering silence. Rather than scrolling, choose silence.
I could have named the discipline of walking without your phone or the discipline of walking without earbuds. The spiritual disciplines involve disengagement and engagement. It isn’t enough to stop looking at our smartphones. That’s a great beginning. But we’re called to shift our gaze elsewhere, paying attention to God and the ways God is present and active in and around us.
This list is just a beginning. What other Christian spiritual disciplines could be used to combat digital distraction? What could result?
Remember that man’s life does not consist in what he has, but in what he is. Serve Jesus and the Church. Oh, let not the best years of your life be years in which you have little communion with God, and in which you do little for Christ! “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Let not your biography be summed up: “He turned to God in his youth, he then became lukewarm, being engrossed in the cares and the business and the social demands of the world, and a short time before his death he saw his mistake, and felt that one thing be needful. For years his spiritual life was barely sustained by the prayers of friends and the weekly services of the sanctuary. He might have been a pillar for the Church, but he was only a weight.” This be far from you. Oh, serve the Lord with gladness, be strong, quit yourselves like men, and abound in the work of the Lord!
Adolph Saphir, The Hidden Life: Thoughts on Communion with God
Adolph Saphir lived from 1831-1891. He was a Hungarian Jew who converted to Christianity and became a Presbyterian minister. If the quote above feels antiquated, those feelings are warranted. The book containing it was published in 1877.
My views on the spiritual life lead me to push back against Saphir, or to at least ask for further nuance, on certain aspects of the above. But my disagreements do not keep me from laughing at what I’ve highlighted in bold, or from cheering when he exhorts, “This be far from you.” It is far better to be a blessing than a burden, especially when you consider the blessings we have received in and through Christ. If you serve the Lord with gladness, do not do so because you desire a more favorable biographical summary. Do so because you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and that as a result you desire nothing more than to live a life pleasing in God’s sight.
Truett began the spring term on Tuesday and this message from Dean Todd Still was delivered during our convocation chapel service. It is excellent. Dean Still explains the meaning and symbolism of crosses on the Truett campus and makes connections to New Testament teachings on the cross, Christ, and Christian discipleship.
I had the honor and privilege of preaching at Truett Chapel yesterday. The message is entitled, “The Friends.” The readings are from Exodus 33:7-11 and John 15:9-17. Thanks to my friends Adam Jones and Michael Liga for serving as readers.
I serve in a seminary. How and where we teach is often conducted with methods and in settings very similar to other, more familiar educational settings. The teacher or professor delivers content, and we sit and listen, much like in a public school or a college lecture hall. We know answers to test questions are being given, and tests must be passed to move on to the next level. We take notes. We study. We produce those answers. And we move on.
This is all fine and good. We do a lot of good work. But the church is a different kind of setting, with different educational modalities and formational aims.
We have a problem when we get our wires crossed and begin thinking that the church is identical with the seminary, and how we’re led and taught effectively in one place is identical with the way we’ll lead and teach in the other. In the seminary, we’re taught all kinds of facts about the Bible, history, theology, and the practice of ministry. Those things are important. But we mistakenly assume that it is these facts, and these points of emphasis, that we’re supposed to stress while with the congregation. When we do this, there is something more central, more important, and more essential that we miss. What are we missing?
In The Contemplative Pastor, Eugene Peterson writes about his discovery that his educational outlook for pastoral ministry was very different than that of a previous generation of pastors, who throughout church history had learned “on the job” within the life of a parish. Seminaries, either as independent institutions or embedded within university systems, are more recent innovations. How we learn now, and how we teach, isn’t the only way to do it, nor is it the only way it has been done.
Peterson discovered both our problem and a different way to approach the pastoral task as a Christian educator. He writes:
My secularized schooling had shaped my educational outlook into something with hardly any recognizable continuities with most of the church’s history. I had come into the parish seeing its great potential as a learning center, a kind of mini-university in which I was the resident professor.
And then one day, in a kind of shock of recognition, I saw that it was in fact a worship center. I wasn’t prepared for this. Nearly all my preparation for being a pastor had taken place in a classroom, with chapels and sanctuaries ancillary to it. But these people I was now living with were coming, with centuries of validating presence, not to get facts on the Philistines and Pharisees but to pray. They were hungering to grow in Christ, not bone up for an examination in dogmatics. I began to comprehend the obvious: that the central and shaping language of the church’s life has always been its prayer language.
Out of that recognition a conviction grew: that my primary educational task as pastor was to teach people how to pray. I did not abandon, and will not abandon, the task of teaching about the faith, teaching the content of the gospel, the historical backgrounds of biblical writings, the history of God’s people. I have no patience with and will not knowingly give comfort to obscurantist or anti-intellectual tendencies in the church. But there is an educational task entrusted to pastors that is very different from that assigned to professors. The educational approaches in all the schools I attended conspired to ignore the wisdom of the ancient spiritual leaders who trained people in the disciplines of attending to God, forming the inner life so that it was adequate to the reception of truth, not just the acquisition of facts. The more I worked with people at or near the centers of their lives where God and the human, faith and the absurd, love and indifference were tangled in daily traffic jams, the less it seemed that the way I had been going about teaching made much difference, and the more that teaching them to pray did.
The educational task of the pastor is to teach, or to invite, people to be in relationship with God. It is to invite, model, instruct, and encourage them in the life of prayer. There are other facets to teaching, of course. But prayer is central.
This is a song about the lies we tell others. We also tell them to ourselves.
I’ve been a fan of Glen Phillips since singing “Thank You” in a service of worship many years ago in Kansas City. I’ve been singing that song since the day I first heard it. God’s love is everywhere.
“Nobody’s Gonna Get Hurt” is a song about the power of words and the deceptions that we persist in, the phrases we utter in our attempts to soften, dismiss, minimize, or distort the realities we face. Well meaning lies, whether meant to protect or obscure or outright hide difficult truths, nevertheless do harm, maybe not in the moment they are uttered, but in their corrosive effects over time. Sometimes silence is better, or a simple, “I don’t know.”
“There’s no price to love, there never was” are words that can only be said by someone who has never loved. Love involves sacrifice, and the deepest loves often come at the greatest cost. Look at Jesus.
“If it’s meant to be, it’s easy,” can only be said by someone who has never had to work for something eternally worthwhile. The easy things aren’t the only things that are “meant to be.” Again, look at Jesus.
“Broken hearts always mend” is a half truth. Sometimes the comfort we long for is elusive; we do not find it in this life. For Christians, hope must remain fixed on the day when God wipes away every tear. I find it interesting that in the new heavens and the new earth there will be any tears at all, but I find it more interesting that God will put a hand to cheek and wipe them away. Only afterward will God abolish death and mourning and crying and pain. Whatever caused the tears, the hurt and the pain, it is not dismissed, but met. It is met by God. Then and only then is it resolved and healed.
Our words have power. We must steward them well. Self deception, must be avoided; the first step in doing so is admitting we are prone to believe our own lies. We must also strive to tell the truth. To tell the truth one must know the truth, and be formed in such a way as to become a truthful person. For Christians, such formation is only possible through encounter with the God who is truth, revealed to us in Jesus Christ, truth in the flesh, truth for us.
“Trinity Sunday” was published in Herbert’s The Temple in 1633. Each morning I read the Bible, a psalm, the daily entry from Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, and a few pages from one (or more) books that I’m slowly, presently working my way through. Herbert’s poetry is a recent selection. I read at least three of his poems each morning.
“Trinity Sunday” is a very short poem, but contains a vast survey of Christian doctrine, beginning with creation and concluding with eschatological, ultimate hope. Herbert brings to memory that the story of the Bible begins with God bringing order from chaos. In Genesis 2, God forms the first human being from the dust of the ground. In the final line of the poem, Herbert asks for the blessing of union with God. What began as mud now runs and rises and then finally rests with God. Humble origins, and a heavenly hope.
Between Herbert’s mention of first and last things, we encounter the doctrine of salvation. God is the redeemer, having justified Herbert through the blood of Jesus Christ. God is also the sanctifier, the one who sets the priest and poet apart, making him holy for a purpose: “to do good.”
God is then petitioned: first to purge, then to enrich. Herbert repents, asking God to do the cleansing work. He considers his sin a “heavy” thing. Sin, transgression, wrongdoing before a Holy God most certainly is. Yet God removes the weight. Herbert vows to “sin no more.” There is a turning. Only then does he asks God’s blessing, that his “heart, mouth, hands” (his whole person) be strengthened for God’s purposes and in accordance with the classical Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity (charity is the traditional rendering; we’re more familiar today with love being mentioned here).
The poem begins and ends addressing the same subject: “Lord” and “thee.” “I” and “my” appear three times; “me” is used four. There is an interplay between Herbert’s “I” and God’s “Thou.” Formed from mud, burdened by sin, Herbert looks to God as Creator, Redeemer, Justifier, Sanctifier, and Sustainer. Herbert looks upon himself, confesses his insufficiencies and inadequacies and faults, and yet he offers himself as a servant, knowing that is the reason God has redeemed and now sanctifies him. He has been caught up and brought into God’s eternal story. He can only play his part with God’s grace, God’s help. The same is true for any who would call upon God today.
I have seen the last three lines of this poem quoted. But those lines become so much richer when they appear alongside and after the first six. To ask God’s help is all the more profound when considered under the full scope of God’s person and work, and to state one’s one weakness, burden, and sin simultaneously serves to humble and uplift. Apart from God, we are quite small and frail, very lost and exposed.
But with God we are united to the source of an unsurpassed and unequaled strength, a strength that works through frailty and weakness and woundedness to make manifest the beautiful gifts of faith, hope, and charity. We are known, and found, and protected, and sent. We are lifted and carried, welcomed and restored.
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