I mentioned in my last blog that “Prayer, silence, solitude, and other spiritual disciplines become not just a mundane routine, but a moment, a possibility, an encounter, an opportunity to spend being intentional about knowing this God more and more and daring Him to take you to the next level.” I would like to comment more on this aspect of spiritual growth.
Let’s define some terms. How do we define spiritual growth? I actually prefer the term “spiritual formation” because I think it is a more accurate term. To me, “growth” seems rather one-dimensional, like short to tall or thin to fat. “Formation,” however, seems multi-dimensional, and that is how I see the spiritual life working. Wikipedia (the trusted source for all internet truth) defines “spiritual formation” as “the growth and development of the whole person by an intentional focus on one’s (1) spiritual and interior life, (2) interactions with others in ordinary life, and (3) the spiritual practices (prayer, the study of scripture, fasting, simplicity, solitude, confession, worship, etc.)”.[1] As you can see from this definition, which I think is very good, spiritual formation is not just about you and God or simply about the removal of sin.
Growing up, I was always taught that if you had a problem with sin, you should confess that sin, preferably at an altar during the invitation at church and leave that sin at the altar and never pick it up again. I did that again and again with certain sins, wondering why I still struggled with them and blaming myself for picking them back up again. The problem with this type of thinking goes back to how we define spiritual growth or spiritual formation. If we define spiritual growth as merely “the absence of sin,” then we do not go far enough. Think of it this way: You have a bucket full of bile. You want to somehow present that bucket of bile to someone as something to drink. What’s the best way to do that? First of all, get rid of the bile! Second, you’re probably going to want to rinse the bucket, if not, get a new bucket all together, and then you need to fill that bucket with fresh and clean drinking water. Using this analogy, all I was doing at that altar was confessing my sin, thinking that mere confession would solve all of my spiritual problems. Twelve-step programs have a term for this. It’s called “negative sobriety.” If an alcoholic simply does not drink, he is negatively sober, and according to the teachings of most twelve-step programs, negative sobriety will not keep you sober for very long. You must become “positively sober” which allows growing and forming spiritually. At some point, you have to rinse your bucket and begin to fill it with pure drinking water.
I have not read many books on spiritual formation, but I have taken two classes on the subject. One was an undergrad class where I was first introduced to Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, a book that is considered a Christian classic and one that I think every believer should read. One of the things that just recently struck me was the subtitle to this book, “The Path to Spiritual Growth.” With the exception of the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible-reading, and meditation, I had always viewed most of the spiritual disciplines as optional. They were for use for someone who had the time and wanted to go deeper in their walk with Christ. I never viewed them as essential. However, Foster says, right in his title to the book that the disciplines are not “a” path to spiritual growth; they are “the” path to spiritual growth. Foster asserts that the spiritual disciplines are not an option for the believer, they are essential.
Let’s pause here for a second. I am not proposing that a person can earn his or her salvation based upon adherence to the spiritual disciplines and I do not think that is what Foster is proposing, although he is often vilified in some circles.[2] As I said in my last blog, “I believe it [election] is unconditional because it is through no conditions of our own.” I do not believe that we, as humans, do anything to deserve salvation. Once we are given mercy from our sin and its punishment (hell) and grace from God to accept His gift of salvation unto an abundant life[3], what does that life consist of? How do we obtain this abundant life? I believe the abundant life that God has called us to is when we, as believers, live to our full spiritual potential, unlocking fruits of the Spirit like peace and joy in a way which can only be a result of pressing deeper into the Spirit and following the Spirit in a fresh and meaningful way. I believe that Foster is asserting that the abundant life, the deeper life, is obtained through the utilization of the spiritual disciplines, the keys to unlocking this deeper life. On a side note, I am not asserting any Gnostic, “secret knowledge” or anything like that. I believe that this spiritual awakening is available to every believer, if we seek after it. Breaking apart Wikipedia’s definition, I think that we can see that spiritual formation has to do with (1) the vertical life, i.e. the status of our relationship with God, (2) the horizontal life, i.e., the status of our relationship with our fellow humans and (3) the actual integration of the spiritual disciplines.
First, you cannot begin to go deeper with God if you have not taken the first step. There are two aspects of this first step. The first aspect is that you must be a Christian, i.e. a believer. You must believe that you are a sinner that is hopeless apart from a God intervention and you must believe that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, fully-God and fully-man, was that intervention, sent to us from God the Father to take our place as the punishment for our sin and to give us this abundant life that we seek. You must accept Him into your life as your Savior and trust Christ by grace through faith for your salvation. The second aspect of this is that you must be actively seeking God in your day to day life. Foster asserts that prayer and Bible reading are spiritual disciplines and, indeed, they are, but in my opinion, they are also essential ingredients for any level of spiritual life. They are part of Christianity 101, if you will. Read your Bible and pray every day.
Second, you must be at harmony as much as possible with your fellow humans. I say “humans” because I want to be gender-inclusive here. If I may be transparent here, this is an area that I really struggle with. I can easily adopt a “Jesus and me” attitude that assumes (rather legalistically even) that as long as I read my Bible and pray every morning, it does not matter what else happens. That is fundamentally and categorically unbiblical and if I may be so bold, it is sin. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor and took the time to hang all the Law and the Prophets on that statement.[4] Unless we love others as ourselves, we are not being obedient to Scripture. For me, where this strikes at the heart, is in my sense of entitlement. I am thoroughly a “Burger King Christian.” I always want to “have it my way.” If I do not get my way, I often act out like a child that has his toy taken away. My anger becomes directed at whatever or more importantly whoever is in the way of me obtaining that thing which I so sinfully think will cause me to be ultimately happy. It could be a server at a restaurant, the person making my sandwich at Subway, or the vehicle that just refuses to get out of my way. I constantly have to repent of my attitude. If I do not confess this right away, I risk giving up the best that God has for me and I really do not want that.
On a side note, I think that we are often guilty of misrepresenting what sin actually does to us. What I mean is that we often view sin as an action or omission of something that we should or should not be doing and by that sin we completely hinder what God is doing in our lives. I do not think that is accurate. What I think is more likely is that sin acts as a clog in a drain pipe. The bigger the clog (the more sin) that is in the drain pipe, the less water gets through. It does not mean that the drain is completely clogged, unless we are not a believer; it means that we just get less and less of God than we could. This would explain why certain areas of our lives we seem to do really good at spiritually and why others we do not. It might be a crude analogy, but the spiritual disciplines help us to break out the plunger and really get to the issue of why our sin holds us back.
Third, spiritual formation has to do with the actual integration of the spiritual disciplines. I have already mentioned that I think that Bible-reading and prayer are considered spiritual disciplines; they are also essential spiritual ingredients for any level of growth. I also now think that for one to grow spiritually, one has to integrate more disciplines. Bible-reading and prayer are only the beginning. I recently had an experience that supported this belief. I mentioned that I had taken two classes in spiritual formation. The second one was just this past quarter where we focused on the actual spiritual disciplines themselves. I had to practice a short-term and a long-term discipline. I chose silence and solitude for my short-term and prayer for my long-term. I cannot begin to express to you the level at which I felt like I pressed into God. My times of silence and solitude were some of the most rewarding times I have ever experienced in my walk with Christ. These were the moments that I actually believe that I began to feel the love of God. There are no words. They were simply incredible. I have also continued to try and focus on my prayer life, especially with my wife. My wife and I now have a regular prayer time on Wednesday nights together that I often look forward to. I have been more challenged in my personal prayer time recently because of lack of time. After my class ended, the holidays and the move took a great deal of time and energy. I am now trying to redirect that energy into spending more time with God. Since I prefer to take long walks for retreat purposes, the snow and cold weather have made this difficult so I am praying (no pun intended) for warmer weather soon.
In closing, as I write this, I do not mean to be legalistic and say that you have to do these things to be a Christian. What I do mean to say is that if you want to be intentional about growing in Christ, if you want to live the abundant life that God has called you to live, you do not do it by osmosis. You cannot somehow attract spiritual maturity by simply “hanging out” passively. You have to be intentional about it and I think that Foster’s book is a good start.
Blessings,
David McDowell
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_growth
[2] http://www.thepropheticyears.com/wordpress/2008/05/30/the-richard-foster-of-the-emergent-church-leaders.html
[3] http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=john+10%3A10&src=esv.org
[4] http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Matthew+22%3A34-40
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
The New Watershed
In early 2003, my wife and I were living in New Boston, Michigan, a “down-river” suburb of Detroit. While still in Wayne County, we could stand on our front porch and look over into Monroe County. We were committed to our church, an Assemblies of God church in Sterling Heights, Michigan which is in northern Macomb County. Even though we have moved almost an hour away, we believed that God had called us to be a part of that fellowship. At that time, I was getting near to the end of my undergrad schooling. After moving north from North Carolina, my theology underwent a major shift when I had a charismatic experience and spoke in tongues. Shortly thereafter, I began to attend this Assemblies of God church that better matched my theology, but I still struggled with the concept of a second baptism in the Holy Spirit. In my opinion, there just was not enough scriptural evidence. My theology had also shifted from being a “Calviminian” to embracing Calvinism and some modified form of reformed theology. I found myself in a unique position of being both reformed and some form of charismatic.
When my belief in Calvinism came to light, my wife and I tearfully were forced to step down from our positions as youth sponsors at our church. It was a painful time for both of us. We loved our church and we loved the youth, but rather than create division between any of the youth and since this was a much more important issue to the leadership of the church than I thought, for the greater good, we said good-bye. In my pain, I began to search for a community of believers that I could belong to and I stumbled on a message board for “Reformed Charismatics.” Since early 2003, I have been a member of this group and as much as a message board could shape someone’s beliefs, that board was very influential. This was a watershed moment for me; I began to try and embrace my beliefs and found that there were others like me out there.
For the past 7 years, I have remained a member of that board, but my beliefs once again began to modify. What I have discovered is that they have not changed so much in belief as they have in emphasis. I credit this change to many things, but first and foremost to simply being exposed, through my seminary training, to people who love the Lord with all their heart, but approach Him very differently than I do. I am now convinced that God’s covenant people are in almost every denomination across the board. To be reformed does not equal being Christian. To be charismatic does not equal being Christian. Indeed, there are many people who would shun being called either of these that remain true to God and his calling upon their lives in all sorts of denominations. What truly matters is what you do with Jesus. For many, this may seem to be overly simplistic, but what I have discovered is that you can theologize until you are blue in the face, but it all comes back to just a few simple things and this is the biggest of them all. There are a few other things that have changed.
First of all, I no longer believe that every believer has the ability to speak in tongues. I honestly do not know if I ever believed it nor do I think that the Scriptures support this belief. I do believe that some people are gifted with this ability and I am one of them. I do not flaunt the gift, but I do exercise it, being very careful to follow biblical guidelines in doing so, but I would not define myself as a charismatic. I even had a pastor friend of mine tell me plainly that I was not a charismatic so I have referred to myself less and less with that term as time has gone on. My concern has shifted now to a more broad concern that we allow the Holy Spirit to work intricately in our lives. The Spirit does indeed move in mysterious ways and for us to shut out something that the Spirit might be doing is dangerous and simply bad theology. As the old saying goes (in a different context), “Leave room for the Holy Spirit.” I have heard of many calloused people who defined themselves as believing in charismata and those that have not get radically surprised by the Holy Spirit in ways almost too heavy to comprehend. Just because you lift your hands in worship or believe in instant healing does not make you a charismatic; it makes you biblical. Being a biblical Christian is something that every believer should strive after and having a biblical view of the Holy Spirit is part of that.
The second thing that has happened is that I have become less concerned with systematics. While I tentatively embrace all five points of Calvinism (because I believe they fit together like a chain), I am not a hard determinist on it because I see many holes in it and places in it that I just have so many questions about. I have called myself a “questioning Calvinist” because to say I am fully Calvinist would not be truthful anymore. I believe that humankind is totally depraved and completely dependent upon God for salvation. I believe that God unconditionally elects some of us unto salvation. I believe it is unconditional because it is through no conditions of our own. I am not exactly sure of all the intricacies of how the Spirit moves within us to affect our will and move it toward Christ; it is a mystery, a divine dance that I can only seem to look at theoretically as if from the outside looking in, but I know how that plays out in my own life. I am a dirty and sinful person who relies on himself way too much and shuns the Spirit’s work in my life way too often. I often, by my own volition, choose to accept something less than what God would have for me and that is sin. I know that my sin often blinds me because often I do not notice it until the light of the Spirit shines on it and reveals it. I cannot trust my pliable heart to reveal to me what I should do because my heart has proved so deceitful in the past that I can lie to myself. I am a wicked man that deserves only pain and suffering. It is through that pain and suffering that I see my need for God. I know that I need a Savior and I know that when Jesus went to that cross, he was thinking about me, in some way. I am not sure if He thought of me personally, but He certainly could have. But I know that His love caused Him to pour out His blood for all who would believe in Him. His grace and the Holy Spirit draw me to Him even though my heart desires other things. It is that grace that holds me close to His side even when I feel like I want to run away. I am not sure how systematic or Calvinist all that is nor do I really care, because it’s biblical and my experience has only served to prove it more so.
The third thing is that I now believe in the radical love of God. Oh, I believed in love before, but the deeper I went into studying the love of God, the deeper that I seemed to experience it. I am growing weary of people who talk about God hating people. When you study the Scriptures and pull out the passages that talk about God hating people, they can generally be explained away in the context of the passage. God certainly has the capacity to hate. He hates sin, but he looks upon his creation with love, a radical love that is so incredible and awe-inspiring that to experience it at the greatest human capacity is only like a drop in the ocean. Even though I have been a believer over fifteen years, I sincerely believe that I am only beginning to experience the love of God. What does that say about the love of God? It cannot be grasped by any level of intellect or education but only through experience.
The fourth thing that I now believe grows out of the first three things. Once you realize that the Holy Spirit cannot be put into a box, once you realize that trying to over-systematize theology is futile, and once you begin to drop all pretenses and swim in the love of God, you get real intentional about it. Your life cannot remain the same once this trifecta of the Holy Spirit, theology, and love converge. Little else makes sense than to serve the Author of this glory. Things fade away like chaff in a hurricane. Perspectives click and you become tunnel-visioned on the shear majesty of the One who dares to love you so much as to shatter your preconceptions of His deity. It matters not how you define yourself as long as you define yourself in Him. Prayer, silence, solitude, and other spiritual disciplines become not just a mundane routine, but a moment, a possibility, an encounter, an opportunity to spend being intentional about knowing this God more and more and daring Him to take you to the next level.
As in 2003, I now stand on the eve of a watershed moment that will forever change how I view God. I have watched this moment approach, almost like watching a ship from a far off, getting closer and closer to the dock. As I have prayed more, sat in silence more listening for the Spirit, sought different ways to try and push myself in understanding, I have felt a bit of a rebirth, like a little pink baby completely dependent upon its mother for everything. I am broken, beaten and bruised from trying to do things the wrong way, for trying to fit myself into any other identity other than Christ. For my identity, I do not need labels that only serve as crude instruments for things that we cannot grasp. Labels can be helpful, but not in this context. The thing that I know, as much as one can know issues of faith, is that for me to live can never be anything but Christ, or it is sin, and for me to die, for His glory, would only be for gain. I fully agree with the hymn-writer: “My faith has found a resting place, Not in device or creed; I trust the ever living One, His wounds for me shall plead. I need no other argument, I need no other plea, It is enough that Jesus died, And that He died for me.”
God bless you all,
David G. McDowell
When my belief in Calvinism came to light, my wife and I tearfully were forced to step down from our positions as youth sponsors at our church. It was a painful time for both of us. We loved our church and we loved the youth, but rather than create division between any of the youth and since this was a much more important issue to the leadership of the church than I thought, for the greater good, we said good-bye. In my pain, I began to search for a community of believers that I could belong to and I stumbled on a message board for “Reformed Charismatics.” Since early 2003, I have been a member of this group and as much as a message board could shape someone’s beliefs, that board was very influential. This was a watershed moment for me; I began to try and embrace my beliefs and found that there were others like me out there.
For the past 7 years, I have remained a member of that board, but my beliefs once again began to modify. What I have discovered is that they have not changed so much in belief as they have in emphasis. I credit this change to many things, but first and foremost to simply being exposed, through my seminary training, to people who love the Lord with all their heart, but approach Him very differently than I do. I am now convinced that God’s covenant people are in almost every denomination across the board. To be reformed does not equal being Christian. To be charismatic does not equal being Christian. Indeed, there are many people who would shun being called either of these that remain true to God and his calling upon their lives in all sorts of denominations. What truly matters is what you do with Jesus. For many, this may seem to be overly simplistic, but what I have discovered is that you can theologize until you are blue in the face, but it all comes back to just a few simple things and this is the biggest of them all. There are a few other things that have changed.
First of all, I no longer believe that every believer has the ability to speak in tongues. I honestly do not know if I ever believed it nor do I think that the Scriptures support this belief. I do believe that some people are gifted with this ability and I am one of them. I do not flaunt the gift, but I do exercise it, being very careful to follow biblical guidelines in doing so, but I would not define myself as a charismatic. I even had a pastor friend of mine tell me plainly that I was not a charismatic so I have referred to myself less and less with that term as time has gone on. My concern has shifted now to a more broad concern that we allow the Holy Spirit to work intricately in our lives. The Spirit does indeed move in mysterious ways and for us to shut out something that the Spirit might be doing is dangerous and simply bad theology. As the old saying goes (in a different context), “Leave room for the Holy Spirit.” I have heard of many calloused people who defined themselves as believing in charismata and those that have not get radically surprised by the Holy Spirit in ways almost too heavy to comprehend. Just because you lift your hands in worship or believe in instant healing does not make you a charismatic; it makes you biblical. Being a biblical Christian is something that every believer should strive after and having a biblical view of the Holy Spirit is part of that.
The second thing that has happened is that I have become less concerned with systematics. While I tentatively embrace all five points of Calvinism (because I believe they fit together like a chain), I am not a hard determinist on it because I see many holes in it and places in it that I just have so many questions about. I have called myself a “questioning Calvinist” because to say I am fully Calvinist would not be truthful anymore. I believe that humankind is totally depraved and completely dependent upon God for salvation. I believe that God unconditionally elects some of us unto salvation. I believe it is unconditional because it is through no conditions of our own. I am not exactly sure of all the intricacies of how the Spirit moves within us to affect our will and move it toward Christ; it is a mystery, a divine dance that I can only seem to look at theoretically as if from the outside looking in, but I know how that plays out in my own life. I am a dirty and sinful person who relies on himself way too much and shuns the Spirit’s work in my life way too often. I often, by my own volition, choose to accept something less than what God would have for me and that is sin. I know that my sin often blinds me because often I do not notice it until the light of the Spirit shines on it and reveals it. I cannot trust my pliable heart to reveal to me what I should do because my heart has proved so deceitful in the past that I can lie to myself. I am a wicked man that deserves only pain and suffering. It is through that pain and suffering that I see my need for God. I know that I need a Savior and I know that when Jesus went to that cross, he was thinking about me, in some way. I am not sure if He thought of me personally, but He certainly could have. But I know that His love caused Him to pour out His blood for all who would believe in Him. His grace and the Holy Spirit draw me to Him even though my heart desires other things. It is that grace that holds me close to His side even when I feel like I want to run away. I am not sure how systematic or Calvinist all that is nor do I really care, because it’s biblical and my experience has only served to prove it more so.
The third thing is that I now believe in the radical love of God. Oh, I believed in love before, but the deeper I went into studying the love of God, the deeper that I seemed to experience it. I am growing weary of people who talk about God hating people. When you study the Scriptures and pull out the passages that talk about God hating people, they can generally be explained away in the context of the passage. God certainly has the capacity to hate. He hates sin, but he looks upon his creation with love, a radical love that is so incredible and awe-inspiring that to experience it at the greatest human capacity is only like a drop in the ocean. Even though I have been a believer over fifteen years, I sincerely believe that I am only beginning to experience the love of God. What does that say about the love of God? It cannot be grasped by any level of intellect or education but only through experience.
The fourth thing that I now believe grows out of the first three things. Once you realize that the Holy Spirit cannot be put into a box, once you realize that trying to over-systematize theology is futile, and once you begin to drop all pretenses and swim in the love of God, you get real intentional about it. Your life cannot remain the same once this trifecta of the Holy Spirit, theology, and love converge. Little else makes sense than to serve the Author of this glory. Things fade away like chaff in a hurricane. Perspectives click and you become tunnel-visioned on the shear majesty of the One who dares to love you so much as to shatter your preconceptions of His deity. It matters not how you define yourself as long as you define yourself in Him. Prayer, silence, solitude, and other spiritual disciplines become not just a mundane routine, but a moment, a possibility, an encounter, an opportunity to spend being intentional about knowing this God more and more and daring Him to take you to the next level.
As in 2003, I now stand on the eve of a watershed moment that will forever change how I view God. I have watched this moment approach, almost like watching a ship from a far off, getting closer and closer to the dock. As I have prayed more, sat in silence more listening for the Spirit, sought different ways to try and push myself in understanding, I have felt a bit of a rebirth, like a little pink baby completely dependent upon its mother for everything. I am broken, beaten and bruised from trying to do things the wrong way, for trying to fit myself into any other identity other than Christ. For my identity, I do not need labels that only serve as crude instruments for things that we cannot grasp. Labels can be helpful, but not in this context. The thing that I know, as much as one can know issues of faith, is that for me to live can never be anything but Christ, or it is sin, and for me to die, for His glory, would only be for gain. I fully agree with the hymn-writer: “My faith has found a resting place, Not in device or creed; I trust the ever living One, His wounds for me shall plead. I need no other argument, I need no other plea, It is enough that Jesus died, And that He died for me.”
God bless you all,
David G. McDowell
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)