Dog Tired

Two days ago, a friend of mine asked me and some other people, “What does it look like to be present with other people?” Lately, I’ve been super tired. Not that every minute has been like that. I’ve just been distracted. You know the kind of place where you are hanging out with friends and all you can think about is what you have to do later, or what you were just working on. Hmm, I’ll have to ponder this some more.

“Inspired by the world’s obsession and devotion to the iPod, iBelieve is a replacement lanyard for your iPod Shuffle. It is a social commentary on the fastest growing religion in the world. And it only costs $12.95.”

I guess if you want to mark yourself as a Christian, this will do it. Although, along the way, you might want to do it actively too. If you want to show them what you believe, try:

• acts of service to show your concern
• actively listening to understand
• not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought, but in humility
• show respect to others, despite differences

Being generous to others may be a greater social commentary than a plastic cap that symbolizes that I’m significant because I’m on a winning team and you aren’t. Food for thought.

A picture is worth a thousand words:

Dear Friends,

By now enough water has gone under the Christian Spiritual Formation bridge that we can give some assessment of where we have come and what yet needs to be done. When I first began writing in the field in the late 70s and early 80s the term “Spiritual Formation” was hardly known, except for highly specialized references in relation to the Catholic orders. Today it is a rare person who has not heard the term. Seminary courses in Spiritual Formation proliferate like baby rabbits. Huge numbers are seeking to become certified as Spiritual Directors to answer the cry of multiplied thousands for spiritual direction. And more.

Still, any genuine understanding of Spiritual Formation and its immense importance for the lives of individuals and churches is as remote as ever. Many contemporary books on the subject (and their number is now legion) simply take up the all too familiar recipe of consumer-Christianity-without-discipleship. Seminary programs become quickly polluted by issues that are a far cry from the spiritual growth of students: money (D. Min. programs give seminaries ready cash), pride (degrees abounding), arrogance (our program is better than your program), ATS accreditation concerns (reading lists and contact hours take precedence over soul growth in grace), and a host of other issues that have nothing to do with the life of “righteousness and peace and joy” in the Holy Spirit, and, indeed, are more often than not counterproductive to it. But, all this may be just as well, since Christian Spiritual Formation is really hammered out in the harsh realities of ordinary life—ear infections and broken arms and bosses filled with guile and stock market slumps and neighbors who deceive. Hence, these are the very places where our hardest study and most careful work in Spiritual Formation must go on.

A MOMENT OF GREAT OPPORTUNITY

You can probably detect that I am not overwhelmingly encouraged by the popular expressions of Spiritual Formation today. I’m not; too much is too faddish and too formulaic for me to be optimistic. And yet, we stand at a moment of great opportunity. Human need today is so obvious and so great that no honest person can deny it. People stagger under the burden of human wickedness. Evil is an open, oozing sore. Therefore superficial, half-answers will not do. Not anymore. Today, there is a great new fact in the contemporary interest in Spiritual Formation. And I view it as a source for enormous hope. This great new fact is the widespread belief that we can no longer bypass authentic, pervasive, thorough transformation of the inner life of the human being.

Add to this the fact that the many “spiritualities” that have arisen in our day do not answer the question of how we can become a good person. Nor do they possess the power to make a person good. But genuine Christian Spiritual Formation does answer the question and does possess the power to bring it to pass. And it is an answer and a power that shines brightly throughout the pages of history. It is no accident that the blazing light and life of Christian faithfulness overcame and supplanted all the “spiritualities” of Rome in the early centuries of the Christian Era. They offered a life—a formed, conformed, transformed life—that the Roman spiritualities simply could not match.

The same can happen today. If . . . if we will: 1) understand the absolute necessity of Spiritual Formation (no more optional discipleship), 2) make a firm intention to pursue it at all costs, 3) learn something of its means, and 4) faithfully practice it in daily life. As we move forward in Spiritual Formation, allow me to suggest several essential areas of focus.

FOCUSING ON JESUS

Nothing is more important in Christian Spiritual Formation than our need to continue ever focused upon Jesus. This is not formation-in-general. This is formation into Christlikeness. Everything hangs on this. Everything. Jesus gives skeleton and sinews and muscle to our formation. In Jesus we find definition and shape and form for our formation. Jesus is our Savior to redeem us, our Bishop to shepherd us, our Teacher to instruct us, our Lord to rule us, our Friend to come alongside us. He is alive. He teaches, rules, guides, instructs, rebukes, comforts. Stay close to him in all things and in all ways.

Then too, as Dallas Willard has taught us, we are constantly learning to live our life as Jesus would live our life if he were we. The point here is that we are not trying to live his life but our life. In the flesh Jesus’ life has already been lived. It is our life that needs the living. Remember, Jesus really is Lord; he is the Master of life, all life. He can teach you and me how to live our life. Really. You’re a computer programmer—he can teach you how to do that well. Ask him. Then listen . . . listen over a period of time. You’ll learn how to do it as he would do it if he were you. A teacher. Well, he is the Master teacher. How about brick laying? Yes, that too.

Some of the deepest teaching comes in the relationships we must deal with day in and day out. How do we relate to someone who deceives constantly? Jesus knows. Ask and it will be given to you. How about ego-driven colleagues? He understands them too. Jesus is the Master of all human relationships. He will guide you in what to say and what to do and how to respond.

Now, the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the touchstone of our understanding of Jesus. These four Gospels in our Bible give us everything needful and essential about Jesus. They refuse, however, to indulge our curiosity about a whole host of details. How long was Jesus’ hair? What color were his eyes? What toys did he play with as a child? Did he play as a child? And more.

Beginning in the second century and continuing right up to the present, various writers have rushed to fill in the gaps with imaginative “lives of Jesus”. Even today every now and then some publisher will come out with a new book on “the lost life of Jesus”. Please, don’t be taken in by such consumer ploys. These flights of fantasy (if I may call them that) do not lead us to the Jesus who is the Way and the Truth and the Life; the Jesus who reveals to us the heart of the Father. No, these fictions reveal not Jesus but the agenda and the biases of the writer. They are a waste of good time and energy. Worse, they so titillate our fantasies that they distract the imagination from its proper function, which is, as Mary, to prayerfully ponder all the realities of Jesus in our heart (Luke 2:19). This prayerful pondering, this sanctified imagination, continually confronts us with the realities of ethical decision and moral choice. Always it drives us to turn from our way into God’s way. Always it brings us face-to-face with the reality of Jesus and calls us increasingly to take on his character, his thoughts, his habits, his passion, his compassion.

FOCUSING ON SCRIPTURE

My mention of the Gospel record leads me to a second essential area of focus for Spiritual Formation: Scripture. Oh, I hope you can feel deep down in your bones the great goodness and wonder of the Bible. God, in sovereign grace and outrageous love, has given us a written revelation of his own being and nature and of his purposes for humanity. That written revelation now resides as a massive fact at the heart of human history. There is, simply, no book that is remotely close to achieving the presence and influence of the Bible. It is truly The Book (hay Biblos).

But the intrinsic power and greatness of the Bible does not make it easy for us to receive the life it offers. In fact, we can often use the Bible in ways that stifle the spiritual life and even destroy the soul. This happened to any number of people who walked in the literal presence of Jesus, and it still happens today. Even to those who speak most highly of the Bible.

Sometimes we study the Bible for information alone in order to prove that we are right and others are wrong in particular doctrines or beliefs or practices. At other times we study the Bible to find some formula to solve the pressing need of the moment. But both approaches to the Bible leave the soul untouched. No, we need to study the Bible with a view to the transformation of our whole person and of our whole life into Christlikeness. We come to the Bible to receive the life “with God” that is portrayed in the Bible. To do this we must not control what comes out of the Bible. We must be prepared to have our dearest and most fundamental assumptions about ourselves and our associations called into question. We must read humbly and in a constant attitude of repentance. Only in this way can we gain a thorough and practical grasp of the spiritual riches that God has made available to all humanity in his written Word.

We can begin with the Gospels looking at the “with-God” life that is fully portrayed in Jesus. And we seek this life abundant that comes in and through Jesus alone. We study the Epistles to see the life of God being poured through his people, the Church. And we seek that life for ourselves and for our families and for our churches and for our times. We study the Psalms and see the people of God at prayer. And we too enter a living experience of prayer, working in co-operation with God to see his kingdom come and his will be done here on earth. We study the Pentateuch to understand the Mosaic Law in the light of grace. And we seek to conform our lives to the heart and spirit of the Law. We study the Historical books to understand how God works through the historical particularities of a people. And we ask for God’s life and God’s work in the specifics of our histories. We study the Prophets and see their bias in favor of the downtrodden. And we seek the power to live continually with a sensitized social conscience. We study the Wisdom books and discover God’s interest in the practical details of everyday life. And we pray for wisdom in the minutiae of our little life. We study the Eschatological books and discover that “He’s got the whole world in his hands”. And we place our little destiny in God’s hands too. And more.

Throughout our study of the Bible we are learning greater love: greater appropriation of God’s love for us, and for us to have greater love for God, for others, and for ourselves. All our study of the Bible is so that we might love more and know more of love. Not as an abstraction but as a practical reality by which we are possessed. And since all who love through and through “naturally” (supernaturally, too) obey the Law, we will be ever more obedient to Jesus Christ and his Abba Father. We surrender freely to the life we find in the Bible, trusting the living water that flows from Jesus through the Bible, and living in the reality of its abundance.

FOCUSING ON SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES

The life we find in the Bible is meant for us. Jesus’ declaration, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” is intended for you and for me (John 10:10). It is a life of unhurried peace and power. It is solid. It is simple. It is serene. It is radiant. But, it is not automatic.

There is a process, a God-ordained means, to becoming the kind of persons and the kind of communities that can fully and joyfully enter into such abundant living. This is the reason for the Disciplines of the spiritual life. They constitute the way God has given us for intentionally “training ourselves in godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7). This is why the Spiritual Disciplines is the third essential focus of Spiritual Formation.

Frankly, no Spiritual Disciplines, no Spiritual Formation. The Disciplines are the God-ordained means by which each of us is enabled to bring the little, individualized power pack we all possess—we call it the human body—and place it before God as “a living sacrifice” (Rom. 12:1). It is the way we go about training in the spiritual life. By means of this process we become, through time and experience, the kind of person who lives naturally and freely in “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).

What are these Spiritual Disciplines I am speaking of? Oh, they are many and varied: fasting and prayer, study and service, submission and solitude, confession and worship, meditation and silence, simplicity, frugality, secrecy, sacrifice, celebration, and the like. The commonly identified public religious activities are important to be sure, but the less commonly practiced activities like solitude and silence and meditation and fasting and submission to the will of others as appropriate are in fact more foundational for Spiritual Formation. All Disciplines should be thoughtfully and resolutely approached for the purpose of forming the life into Christlikeness, or they will have little or no effect in promoting this life.

It is vitally important for us to see all this spiritual training in the context of the work and action of God’s grace. As the great Apostle reminds us, “it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). You see, we are not just saved by grace, we live by grace. And we pray by grace and fast by grace and study by grace and serve by grace and worship by grace. All the Disciplines are penetrated throughout by the enabling grace of God.

The training of the Spiritual Disciplines must always be seen in the context of an intimate, personal walk with Jesus himself. We are not looking for some exhaustive list of the Disciplines so that we can cross every “t” and dot every “i”. Nor are we looking for any “formula for blessedness”. No, no, this is a dynamic, interactive life “with God”. In practicing the Spiritual Disciplines we are simply learning to fall in love with Jesus over and over and over again.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

And that takes us back to where we started, doesn’t it! We start with Jesus and we end with Jesus. As the Cotton Patch paraphrase of the Gospels puts it, “Jesus is tops over all!” Jesus is indeed our everliving Savior, Teacher, Lord, and Friend. He will guide and direct. All we need do is listen. And obey.

Peace and joy,
[752-1:none]
Richard J. Foster

This article first appeared in Heart-to-Heart, a publication of RENOVARÉ.

“The more you do, the better you are,” has been the attitude of my heart over the last 27 years. I think I learned it from the work ethic of my family and I think they learned it from our culture. I don’t know the origin, because I am not a historian, but as I look back over the last hundred years of our country it makes sense. World War I, the depression, World War II, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the War on Terrorism today. Difficult times brings great sacrifice. Suffering brings endurance. Endurance brings habit. A century of war has brought our country to eliminate the non-essentials so that we can focus on what is important. This has been good and bad together. The problem isn’t that the non-essentials were eliminated. The problem is that the essentials were eliminated.

This brings up the question of what is essential and what is not. This is a great question to ponder and there are two ways to look at it. First, “What will keep you from dying?” (the scarcity mindset). Second, “What will make you thrive?” (the abundance mindset). Let’s answer the first question, because this is the question that we’ve been asking as a culture.

Question one:

to keep a human being from dying there are the obvious: food, water, shelter (necessary resources to keep the physical body alive). But I wouldn’t stop there. Within a society, there must be justice, peace, righteousness (the pieces that protect and provide for people).

Question two:

in order to thrive there needs to be a deep sense of purpose, a connection/intimacy with God and significant others (family, spouse, friends), ability to think/feel the way you do safely and express it in peaceful ways. Beyond that, each person should understand how his Maker made him uniquely and seek to live to reflect the Maker’s Mark in him.

When you answer question one with question two things or vice versa you have a hell of a life. Disorder, discontentment, disillusionment. If you ask the average American Joe what the american dream is, he will tell you it is to make a lot of money, so that he can do what he wants to. But to say, “I want to have money so that I can thrive,” is a fallacy at the core. The pursuit of resources will remove scarcity but will never produce an inner abundance, because scarcity deals with the external, while abundance deals with the internal and relational. And those who passionately pursue wealth are really trying to fill the vacuum in their heart.

So, what is the problem with busyness? Busyness at the core comes from a desire to have an ordered physical life. A successful business will produce financial resources which solve the living conditions problem. But a pursuit of the physical body in exclusion to the pursuit of the soul leaves us dead inside. Having good physical conditions doesn’t make you thrive. In fact having too much stuff and focusing on the material world actually does the opposite. It kills us inside, because it encourages us to deprive our souls of what truly does bring life.

I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t enjoy the physical life, because we are physical. To say the only thing that matters is the spiritual world is a mistake, because our whole experience of life is through a physical body. We should enjoy playing football and canoeing and festivities and dancing and laughter. However,

if this is our whole life, we will feel empty. Think about the celebrities in this world. They seem to have it all, but are missing the most important part. Wealth does bring freedom of choice, but does not bring inner happiness. The physical and the spiritual must be married if we want to truly live. We need to slow down our lives so that the still, quiet voice of God can seep into our lives. He speaks purpose into our life. He is eternal and immortal. He is not frantic in his actions, worried about what will happen. And he loves you, not what you can do for him. He doesn’t need you to provide for Him. He can do everything he needs to himself anyway. He simply wants your heart, because he wants give you life.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important the clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable then they? Who of you by worrying [about these things] can add a single hour to his life?” - Jesus

Getting caught up in the pressure of life hinders connectedness to God, spiritual growth, and personal satisfaction. And it makes us more like the world we are trying to season with salt, light, and grace.

God calls His people to a counter-cultural lifestyle, to a mode of living that reflects God’s presence in us. We are not meant to be overwhelmed with commitments, but to be enveloped in the peace of Christ. The great reality of the Christian life is that Christ lives in us by the Spirit, and we live in Him. Our priority, therefore, must be to cultivate the presence of the One in whom “we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28).

Neglecting the contemplative dimension not only lets the fires of inner passion burn down; ultimately it leads to real lethargy and ineffective service.

A.W. Tozer observed that in his day there were many Bible teachers and preachers around: “Too many of these seemed satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their lives.” Tozer concluded, “It is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God himself.” God shows Himself to us, not only in silence and solitude but as we follow him in obedience.
As Christians we achieve balance in contemplative living with prayer and action. Activity for God must be born of reflection; service, of contemplation; and action, of prayer. Outward acts of evangelism, discipling, and social concern, to which we are called, must be fueled by the fire of spiritual consideration. John of the Cross (d. 1591) wisely wrote, “What we have joyously harvested with the sickle of contemplation in solitude, we must thresh on the floor of preaching, and so broadcast.” Kingdom service, in turn, stimulates deeper reflection and contemplation, thereby completing the circle of truth.

Augustine urged Christians to pursue both contemplation and action. “No man must be so committed to contemplation as, in his contemplation, to give no thought to his neighbor’s needs, nor so absorbed in action as to dispense with the contemplation of God.”

Extended quote taken from Satisfy Your Soul by Dr. Bruce DeMarest. Pages 182-183.

Spiritual maturity is not possessing vast quantities of Bible knowledge or possessing the most powerful spiritual gifts. Carnal people can have both of these things. Spiritual maturity is sharing the affections of God and discerning his voice. It is loving what God loves and hating what he hates. Spiritually mature Christians love God and his people passionately, and they hate anything that takes them away from God. Only in the context of such love will Bible knowledge and the gifts of the Spirit ever achieve their divine purposes. The power of the Spirit can flow unhindered through passionate love for God and his children

Surprised by the Power of the Spirit by Jack Deere, page 206

For centuries, philosophers and psychologists have studied personality types. One of the most widely used and tested personality assessment instrument is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI categorizes human personalities in four pairs of preferences that offer sixteen combinations. The four pairs answer the following questions.

• Where does one focus attention?
  Extroversion (E) - Introversion (I)
• How does one take in information?
  Sensing (S) - Intuition (N)
• How does one make decisions?
  Thinking (T) - Feeling (F)
• How does one deal with the world?
  Judging (J) - Perceiving (P)

The MBTI and other personality instruments can help us Christians understand our strengths and weaknesses. They can give us insights into how we might better respond to God’s working in our lives. Rather than relying on a generic model of spiritual training, the MBTI allows us to structure patterns of spiritual formation suited to people’s unique personalities and temperaments.

For example, extroverts flourish through lively interaction with other Christians. Introverts most comfortably relate to God through quiet reflection. Thinkers find spiritual stimulation in theological studies. Feeling types find emotionally uplifting praise music more to their liking. We tend to live out the faith through the grid of our temperamental comfort zone.

The greatest potential for growth, however, will come through the less preferred or weaker function, although overcoming the inertia of habit may be difficult. Jesus said, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind” (Luke 10:27)–that is, with every God created capacity.

High-energy extroverts find new potential for growth by practicing the disciplines of biblical meditation, contemplation, and journaling. Introverts find new spiritual resources through inter-personal relationships and engaging in group experiences. Sensates develop repressed intuition through the practice of contemplative prayer or by listening to others more sensitively. Intuiting types grow by being attentive to God’s ways in nature and history. They are enriched by drawing on all their God-given senses in worship.

Thinking types grow the heart by disciplines that stir the emotions and draw out feelings. Such might include meditating on the beauty of creation, praying the psalms, or imaginative reflection on biblical stories, such as the prodigal son or the lost sheep. Thinkers become more adaptable by exploring a variety of worship experiences (sacramental, liturgical, and contemplative). Feeling types grow as they use their minds more creatively by formulating their biblical world-and-life view. Judging types grow as they seek variety in their spiritual experiences. They should be more spacious to the unexpected workings of Providence. Perceivers do well to take a more disciplined approach to spiritual formation.

When I consider the uniqueness and complexity of each human being, I recall the words of the psalmist: “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous” (Psalm 139:14).

Extended quote taken from Satisfy Your Soul by Dr. Bruce DeMarest. Pages 182-183.