Forgot our hearts
Wendy who runs our video production every Sunday, emailed me this week a letter from a college junior to an author who writes books for youth. This letter is circulating on Facebook, so I have no idea how true it is, but it matches some of my experience in working with youth. She writes:
I am a junior at a well-known Christian college. I grew up in highly respected “fundamental independent Baptist” churches, and went to excellent Christian schools. My father has been a Christian worker since before I was born…
Since I was 12 and now on into college I have struggled with “serious” issues. And I found out when I went to college that I am not the only “good kid” who is or has struggled with or is still struggling with serious stuff. We struggle with issues like eating disorders, depression and suicide, cutting, pornography, gender identity, homosexuality, drugs, drinking, immorality, and the list could go on…
My point is that the problems that are supposed to be bad kid’s problems belong to us too. Unfortunately, our parents and youth workers don’t know that we struggle with these things and they don’t know what to do with us when they find out…
Our parents did not spend time teaching us to love God. Our parents put us in Sunday Schools since K4. Our parents took us to church every time the doors opened, and sent us to every youth activity. They made sure we went to good Christian colleges. They had us sing in the choir, help in the nursery, be ushers, go soul-winning. We did teen devotionals, and prayed over every meal. We did everything right. And they made sure that we did.
But they forgot about our hearts… So to us, Christianity has become a religion of externals. Do all the right stuff, and you’re a good Christian. So, some of us walk away from church. Some of us stay in church and fill a pew. Many of us struggle with stuff that our parents have no idea about because they hardly know us (from a letter said to be addressed to Pastor Cary Schmidt of Lancaster Baptist Church circulating on Facebook).
Again, I have no idea as to the real authorship of this letter or how many redactions have been made along the way, but I understand the point of this letter. I see it every day. Young people who have been taught to be “good Christians” but never taught how to develop a relationship with Jesus Christ. Adults in crisis who are wondering why their under-developed “religion of externals” is not sustaining them. To order our private worlds, we need to stop trying to be “good Christians” and start developing spiritual strength, which is a relationship with Jesus.
Ordering Your Private World
Today is the fourth Sunday in this series on Ordering Your Private World. We have talked in previous weeks about living from a place of call rather than a place of drive. We have talked about how we can live more in the moment when we choose to give our time rather than allow others to take or waste our time. Last week we talked about using our God-given mental abilities so that we can best use our gifts in fulfilling our call.
On this fourth week I will talk about developing spiritual strength that comes from a thriving relationship with God in Jesus Christ.
Many of us, like this college student, have been led to believe that our faith journey is all about praying enough, reading the Bible enough, going to church enough, evangelizing enough, memorizing enough and the like. We have been focused on the exteriors, and in the process, we have, in her words, forgotten about our hearts.
Several years ago the Willow Creek Church, one of the very first “megachurches,” did a study of regular attenders of their congregation and others across the country to learn about spiritual growth. One of the findings from that study is quite revealing:
“Church activities alone do not drive spiritual growth” (several resources quoting Reveal study by Willow Creek including Vernon Armitage sermon, emphasis added)
Church activities (i.e. coming to worship, attending Sunday School, being involved in men’s or women’s ministries, serving on a committee, teaching) alone do not drive us in our spiritual growth. You and I need something more than just activity. We need genuine, spiritual nutrition.
Processionary Caterpillars
Processionary Caterpillars
I recently heard about an experiment done by noted French naturalist, Jean Henri Fabre, in the late 19th century. Fabre was fascinated with the Processionary Caterpillar – an interesting species known for its instinct to follow the caterpillar in front of it. Apparently, one might see a line of processionary caterpillars single file on their way…somewhere.
Fabre demonstrated the strength of this instinct with a simple experiment. He took a flowerpot and placed a number of processionary caterpillars single-file around the circumference of the pot’s rim, making a complete circle. Each caterpillar’s head touched the caterpillar in front of it so that every caterpillar had another in front of it to follow, but none were actually leading. Fabre then placed the caterpillars’ favorite food in the middle of the circle just 6 inches away. Round and round they went for seven days, until they started to die from exhaustion and starvation. They were so busy following that they never saw the food right there beside them.
The preacher I heard tell about this experiment said that the caterpillars “had confused advancement with activity” (Vernon Armitage sermon “Be Fully Alive”).
In our spiritual journeys many of us can become processionary caterpillars, confusing advancement with activity. As if all of our Christian doing is the goal. I think that is what our college student is describing. The church can keep us busy doing “good Christian” activity without ever addressing the deep longings of our hearts, the advancement of our spiritual journeys. We’re in the circle, obediently following, but slowly dying of malnutrition, when the food we need is so close.
Our friend Qoheleth, the author of Ecclesiastes has something to say about a life of following the “right” pattern. Listen again to the brief passage of Scripture read earlier:
Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him. Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow (Ecclesiastes 8:12-13 Msg).
No matter how good we think we have it, without a relationship with God, we will be dissatisfied and will come to times of struggle. But with spiritual strength, even times of struggle are bearable.
Let’s look at some ways we can move beyond being processionary caterpillars, just going through the motions and begin to find the food that is right there beside us.
Gordon MacDonald in his book Ordering Your Private World offers what he calls “Four spiritual exercises of critical importance,” and I want to add a fifth.
Exercise 1 – Silence and Solitude
The first exercise that MacDonald offers is to take time for silence and solitude.
We live in a noisy world. We get in the car and put on the radio. We listen to music while shopping. We are subjected to noise in our when we are put on hold. Some of us put on the television when cooking. Earbud headphones seem omnipresent in our society.
In the NOOMA video series there is a video on noise and our need for silence. About two-and-a-half minutes the screen goes black and the audio silent, after which the video continues. In the back of the DVD study guide the producers printed this: “Since releasing Noise, NOOMA customer service has received numerous calls from frustrated and perplexed customers wondering why this NOOMA is only 2 minutes and 34 seconds long.” Apparently many of those watching a video on noise and our need for silence, turned off the video assuming something was wrong with it in less than 18 seconds.
Many of us are quite uncomfortable with silence. Have you ever been to a “moment of silence” and caught yourself looking at your watch? Or have you ever experienced a quiet time in church and assumed I forgot what to do next? We are not used to silence and solitude, yet they are essential in our spiritual journeys. Gordon MacDonald quotes Mother Teresa:
“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence…the more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life. We need silence to be able to touch souls. The essential thing is not what we say but what God says to us and through us. All our words will be useless unless they come from within – words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness” (location 1450).
Throughout the Gospels we read about how Jesus would take time to go off to a quiet place by himself to pray. There is even a story in the Gospel of Mark (1:35-37) that tells of a time when the disciples wake up one morning and can’t find Jesus. He has gone off for one of his quite times. When they finally find him they sound like parents, “Everyone is looking for you.” Apparently, the disciples thought that Jesus should be available 24-7. Jesus knew better. He knew he needed those times of silence and solitude to be able to fulfill his difficult calling. Like Jesus, you and I need those moments also.
Some of us get excited by that. To others the thought of being along and quiet causes us to shudder. I’m not suggesting locking yourself in your basement for 20 minutes. I would suggest that you find other, more natural times. Are you alone in your office from time-to-time? Can you have lunch alone – without a book or music or the computer and just seek out some time with God? I like early mornings. I know others who stay up late to have time alone with God. Or one that I find helpful is to turn off the radio in the car. I’m alone anyway, and without the radio, I often find myself in a ready to listen to God.
Look for those times when you can get quiet and allow God to break through and speak to you. Move away from one-way communication with God and acting like that annoying friend who never listens because we never stop talking. Silence and solitude give God time and space to respond.
Exercise 2 – Listening to God
Which brings us to exercise 2, listening to God. There are many ways to do this. One of them is by keeping a journal. There is a long line of journalers in the Christian tradition, including John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Wesley’s journals are an important part of our history.
Don’t complicate this. You don’t need a class on journaling. Those who find journaling a fruitful spiritual discipline simply write down what is going on in their life – the spiritual and the mundane – all part of the same journal. We can write in our journals about anything, they are only for us – church, prayer, the kids, our frustrations, work, whatever is on our minds.
How does this help us to listen? When we journal, we process our experiences differently. We begin to put pieces together. We are taking the time to evaluate what is happening in the light of our relationship to God.
I had this recently where it seemed to be just a set of circumstances, but then I began to realize that the circumstances were an answer to prayer, and God’s hand in the life of a friend of mine who needed some guidance and direction.
Exercise 3 – Reflection and Meditation
When we are journaling we are participating in exercise 3, reflection and meditation.
Socrates, and it is not often I quote Socrates in a sermon, as he was choosing to either stop philosophizing or subject to the penalty of death, famously said this: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” If we are going to move beyond the exterior faith that we find so shallow and will not sustain, we need to find time for reflection and meditation – time to examine life.
We need to be more than just computers who can spit out the right answers. We talked about this a little last week, and our college student is arguing against it this week. We need to be people who are internalizing the message of the Gospel and allowing it to affect the entirety of our lives.
I know this affliction. I was dragged to church from the time I was five. I had to be sick to miss a Sunday. My family had what we considered our “pew” at First United Methodist Church of Toms River, NJ. In fact,when the congregation sold our original building in the late 70’s, my family bought one of the pews which my mom and dad still have in their dining room. I’m not sure if that is the exact one that was ours, but it meant something to us.
I was always good in school. My identity centered on that ability. So I took to Sunday School with similar enthusiasm. Around junior high and on into high school, I was one of the youth that everyone wanted on their Bible Baseball team. Bible baseball was a trivia game we played from time to time where the harder questions were awarded more “bases.” I was the Babe Ruth of my youth group.
I don’t think I’m being hard on myself when I say that while I had plenty of knowledge in my head, but not a whole lot of it was affecting my heart. I knew many “right” answers, but found myself in a “religion of exteriors” until late into high school. It took years for the spirit to make that 18-inch journey from my head to my heart.
I was a fan of Jesus, like I am a fan of other things in my life. For example, I could know everything there is to know about my favorite music artist David Crowder. I follow him on Twitter and Facebook. I buy the albums, read his books, and even read his blog. Even with all of that, I don’t really know him. I know about him, but I have no relationship with him.
Good Christians are “fans.” Spiritually strong followers are in relationship with Jesus.
McDonald quotes CS Lewis:
“St. Augustine says, ‘God gives where He finds empty hands.’ A man whose hands are full of parcels can’t receive a gift. Perhaps these parcels are not always sins or earthly cares, but sometimes our own fussy attempts to worship Him in our way. Incidentally, what most often interrupts my own prayers is not great distractions but tiny ones – things one will have to do or avoid in the course of the next hour.”
Reflection and meditation are ways to put the packages down. We then allow God to give us the gifts that he has in store for us. We need to take a breath, from time to time, and reflect on the circumstances of our lives, and allow Jesus to work in us and through us. To begin to make that move from head to heart and allow the Good News of the Gospel to become an integral part of who we are.
An aside: There seems to be a lot of talk about the practices of meditation and yoga and all of that. Recently I talked to someone who considers part of the practices she uses to get in touch with Jesus to be outside of our Christian faith because they are commonly considered to have Eastern roots. Two things about this:
One, meditation is a lost Christian spiritual practice. For thousands of years Christians have used various forms of meditation to get in touch with God in special ways. Again, Jesus himself often went to a quiet place.
Two, there seems to be a common understanding that Christianity is disconnected from our bodies, and nothing could be farther from the truth. Again for thousands of years Christians have used body posture to help us get in touch with the spirit. MacDonald talks about a pastor who used to keep a pair of coveralls in his office so that he could lay down prostrate in his office to pray without messing up his suit.
If practices like meditation and yoga are a distraction, drawing you away from Christ, maybe you need to stop. But if they are helping you get in touch with Christ, remember that our faith is rooted in incarnation – God himself inhabiting a body. Being in touch with our bodies is an important part of who we are.
Now back to our exercises:
Exercise 4 – Prayer
We need to be in prayer, in communication with God. My experience though tells me that most Christians when asked if there is one thing about their spiritual life that they would like to improve, they will quickly respond with prayer. When we offer courses on prayer, we typically fill them.
Many of us have preconceived notions of what a prayer should be. Maybe you have heard about different formulas for prayer like the ACTS prayer (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication) or the JOY prayer (Jesus, others, yourself). Maybe your prayer life consists of a bunch of prayers you learned rote – the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, a table grace, or “Now I lay me down to sleep.”
I shared with the youth group recently about how my prayer life changed when I got really angry with God and “let him have it” one night. In that moment I stopped lying to God, stopped trying to impress God, and got real with Him. That changed everything.
Prayer can be quite simple. Our goal is simply to open our hearts up to God as we would to our closest friend. We don’t need to approach as we would a king. Jesus addressed God in his prayer life with the Aramaic equivalent of “Daddy,” not Father or Lord. Just Dad. We are talking to our dad.
I don’t normally pray long prayers. Now I know that some of you are saying, “Really? That’s not our experience here!” But in my everyday living, most of my prayers are short. A sentence or two of thanksgiving, help, awe, whatever I’m feeling at the moment. Sure, I do the longer ones from time to time, but I would rather have an ongoing conversation with God throughout the day rather than limit it to 10 minutes in the morning and/or 10 minutes at night. Plus, when I try to chat with God for a long period of time, I find that my mind often wanders around – with a checklist of what has to be done or whatever else is on my mind.
Find a way of communicating with God that means the most to you. Maybe you need to consider writing prayers as part of your journaling. Maybe you need to find a good place to pray so that you can lay down or kneel or stand. Maybe you need to set up a worship area in your house where you can light a candle to pray. It doesn’t matter how you do it. What matters is that you do it. Communicate with God openly and honestly.
Ok, that is Gordon MacDonald’s four in Ordering Your Private World. Now I need to add my number 5 – service.
Exercise 5 – Serve others.
Mark Twain offers a bit of a corrective to Socrates in this famous quote: The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the life too closely examined may not be lived at all.
A danger in all of this seeking to grow spiritually is the amount of navel-gazing that it can induce. All of this self-examination – in silence and solitude, journaling, reflecting, and praying – can make us so “heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.”
Part of our call as the people of God is to serve those around us. Ask any youth that has been on a mission trip and they will tell you that their time of service is when they have grown the most spiritually.
Consider going on that mission trip in the weeks to come. Tell Bob and I where you want to go and allow us to help you get there. Volunteer at Tri-Lakes Cares and meet with those in need on a regular basis and serve them. Get trained by Tessa to work with women who are surviving domestic violence. Ask the elementary school if they could use you as an aide to help kids who struggle in the traditional classroom. Go to your neighbor and spend an hour a week cleaning their house for free. Pursue that passion that allows you to serve someone else.
Our lives are meant to be lived. We grow in our relationship with Jesus so that we can live more fully, not to replace the living of our lives.
Going Deeper
"Going Deeper and Higher" © Copyright Stephanie West
As I draw this sermon to a close, I am concerned that all I have offered is a new checklist of things you and I need to do to be good Christians. Please don’t hear these that way. That is not our goal. What we have offered are some ways that you can grown, that you can develop spiritual strength. But if they are just empty practices we go through to try to be “good Christians” they will be of little value.
I was recently on a walk with one who is going through a particularly tough time. She asked, “What did they teach you in seminary about how to get to the next level spiritually?” They didn’t teach me that in seminary. Like any institution of education, seminary was mostly about the head – which may be a sad statement about our pastoral education. That question continues to roll around in my head. I think our college junior in her letter is asking the same thing. I think the thoughtful processionary caterpillar would ask the same question.
The question behind the question is this: I have been a good Christian and I’m still struggling. It isn’t working for me anymore. What is the next level, and how do I get there?
The next level, going deeper, is all about your relationship with God. We need to get beyond the exteriors and into relationship. Silence and solitude, listening, reflection and meditation, prayer and service may help you on that journey. Take the first step, whatever that is for you.
And may you and I stop trying to be good Christians and start growing in our relationship with Jesus the Christ!
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Bibliography
Armitage, Vernon. “Be Fully Alive” sermon podcast. The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, 19 February 2011.
MacDonald, Gordon. Ordering Your Private World. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003. (Kindle edition)
