Along the Way
Picture in your mind any of the times when God seemed so real, so close that you felt your life would never be the same. Maybe it was recently, or perhaps years ago, but these "mountain-top" experiences punctuate a spiritual life. It may have been at a retreat, or a church service, or alone in a meadow, or during prayer with a close friend. Moments like this are special enough and powerful enough that many faithful folks go on searching for them to repeat, and where nothing else quite measures up.
But life isn't defined on the mountain-top, but in the everyday. Listen to Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun from Pennsylvania, on this chain of thought.
“It is one thing to make a pilgrimage to the desert to find God. It is entirely another to be open to finding God where we are… Life is not an exercise in spiritual gymnastics. It is one long, unending attempt to put on the mind of God wherever we are, whatever happens to us on the way. We are not here to pray our way out of life’s challenges. We are here to grow through every one of them into spiritual adulthood. The shrines and special prayers and holy pilgrimages along the way are spiritual oases meant to build our strength for the rest of the way. They are not God; they are simply signs that the God who made us is with us. It is that relationship that counts far beyond any particular devotion.”
That quote is worth reading again and folding it into how you see your spiritual journey.
In liturgical traditions, pilgrimages and shrines and monastic seasons are the avenues to really meet God; whereas in our lane we more often move toward rallies and revivals and conference retreats that serve the same desired outcomes. Some look for emotional set points, while others move toward quiet contemplation and meditation. Regardless of what moves the needle for you, these times serve important roles in spiritual development. The danger here is believing that these moments are the point of the journey, rather than "spiritual oases meant to build our strength for the rest of the way." We all need the occasional oasis to rest, recalibrate, recommit, and then rejoin the traffic of life.
If Chittister is right, and I think she is, think how your life might be different if lived as one long, unending attempt to put on the mind of God wherever we are, whatever happens to us on the way. Having the mind of Christ is ours to grasp as we grow. So, instead of clinging to earthly securities like money or health or status, we ask questions like, "What is the loving thing I can do here?" or "How might an extension of grace make this matter better?" or even "Is there a hard truth I can deliver in love that needs to be said?"
Few of us relish conflict and hard times, but seeing them from a different angle can serve as a launch pad for new growth. Listen again to this woman's words:
We are not here to pray our way out of life’s challenges. We are here to grow through every one of them into spiritual adulthood.
That's good stuff.
When we are asked to pray for a friend it usually takes the form of petitions for healing, or relief, or deliverance, and there is nothing wrong with doing that, and God invites us to ask away. However, God may have other uses in mind for the situations we face. His view on life, with all of its trevails, is so much more deep and wise than ours. The very thing we want to run from may be just the thing he intends to use to take us to the next level of maturity. What else can explain Paul, in the midst of a grand display of our victory and unshakable position in Christ, when he writes toward the end of Romans 8,
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
Apart from the Holy Spirit working in the trenches with us and leading us through the hardest of days, life might be largely an idle waste, and might seem like the whole thing never quite measures up to our expectations. God at work in a life gives it meaning and a direction. Without a sense of a design we cannot now see, despair can look attractive to any person. Shakespeare got at this with Macbeth, who, having killed his king to become king, pauses to reflect on the futility of life in the midst of his reign of terror.
Out, out, brief candle!
Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
But that is not our view on life. In Jesus, we are redeemed and made new. With the Holy Spirit we are led with confidence. Having our Father as a good father, we rest in the face of challenge. Our hour on the stage, whether full of peace or mired in adversity, can be lived out in hope for an eternity where all things are made new.
As we close out 2022, take some time to scan the landscape of the past months and look closely for the fingerprints of God in the events you lived through. As for me, it is worth my time to look for Jesus-signs in my everyday life. I will welcome the occasional oasis along the way, but I know my growth will happen on the road, not apart from it.
Let's purpose to grow together this year in ways we can't even imagine. That, my friends, signifies something!
How about some music?
2wo funnies for the road ahead
Two rabbinical students were caught by the Rabbi gambling and drinking in the company of undesirable characters -- even before the sun set on the evening of the Sabbath.
The Rabbi called them into his study the next day. Both confessed to having given in to weakness, and admitted that they deserved punishment.
The Rabbi thought and then went into his kitchen and brought back two bags of dried peas. "Put these in your shoes," he told them, "and walk on them for a week, to remind yourself how hard life can be when you turn away from the Law."
A few days later the two students met. One was limping terribly, had dark circles under his eyes, and looked very tired. The other seemed much as he had been the week before.
"Hey," said the first. "How is it that you are walking so freely. Didn't you do as the Rabbi told us and put the peas in your shoes?"
"Of course I did," said the other. "How could I disobey the Rabbi?" He started to walk away, paused and then said, "But I boiled them first."
__________
Just before the funeral services, the undertaker came up to the very elderly widow and asked, "How old was your husband?"
"98," she replied. "Two years older than me."
"So you're 96?" the undertaker asked.
She nodded and responded, "Hardly worth going home, is it?"