God and I

Well… I hate to say it, but I think my first attempt at blogging failed (And I’m sure someone out there is collecting their money). Regardless! I wont be too hard on myself, but simply recommit to doing better! When I started this last year it became very therapeutic for me but life (school mostly) got in the way and we only lasted two months. Let’s shoot for four!

I’ll start out this year as I did last year - by recommending a way forward In your spiritual life. I only do this because it was such a game changer for me a few months ago. It actually came off the heels of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero. That book led me down a rabbit hole of contemplative spirituality that I realized was very much missing from my life. Nearly thirty years passed before I heard of the importance of emotional health, how a contemplative lifestyle is a necessary part of emotional health and how they both feed into the overall health of your spiritual life. I hope you will read this and consider it for your own walk with God as well.

One of the books that I feel bodes well with Scazzero’s book is Being with God by A. J. Sherrill that came out last year. I’ll be honest, when I first started reading it I was not impressed. In fact, I was initially turned off by something in the first few chapters but decided to go through with it because I had to hit my reading goal for the year on Goodreads (lolz) and this book wasn’t all that long.

Looking back at it, I can see this is one of the small moments in my life where God just seems to have nudged me in the right direction for my own benefit. I needed to read this book. I needed to read this book at this exact moment in my life. The first eight months of 2021 were exteremly tranformational for me. It was tough. It was tough financailly, spiritually, at work, in my marraige - every part of me felt assaulted. I was drained and the worst part was I wasnt all that aware of it. I knew I was tired, but I was attributing it to the wrong things which led me to looking for the wrong fixes.

Truth was, I was tired from pursuing godliness. I was tired of church life. I felt that God was so far away and that no matter how much time I put into that relationship, there was still some performance that had to be done to garner his affection for me. Ridiculous, right? I’ve been ministering to others for a decade now. I’ve read some of the best books on self-care for the minister over the past year. Why could I not see that I was digging out the same ditches week after week just to fill them back in through my oblivious attitude towards so much of my time being spent without God?

I was working without resting. Ministering without recovering. Pouring out with out going back to the well to refill my bucket.

In short, I was wasting away while trying to repair my marriage, be available for my daughter, care for the people of my congregation, all while trying to figure out why these good things I was doing were not bringing me fulfilment.

What I needed to be reminded of was the words of scripture that Sherrill brought to me:

Be Still and Know that I Am God.

HOW CLICHE!!! I feel silly even writing this out for others to read. That’s one of the fundamental verses for the Christian’s spiritual life and it is the one that I had mistaken for shallow Christianity. When in reality, that concept is weighty and the truth of it is only found in the depths of someone finding fulfillment in the presence of God. So, in my despair, I found the importance of being with God. I found out that my spirit longs to be alone with God and when I give that time to Him I am given what I lack.

So, what is my way forward? Well, firstly, I like how Glen Scourgie defines spirituality in the opening chapter of the Dictionary of Christian Spirituality when he says that spirituality is much more than just spiritual disciplines or “soul crafting.” But that spirituality must be viewed holistically. It involves every aspect of the person, including - especially - confession and repentance. That was my first step. I was harboring sin in my life completely unchecked and I knew it was there: lust, resentment, anger, and discontentment were the emotions out of which I lived out. Identifying this sin, naming it, knowing why I had made those decisions, confessing those things to my wife and friends, and making real changes in my life where those emotions no longer go unchecked started me down this road back to God.

The second half of this journey was reading books from Scazzero, Sherrill, and coming across the classic The Practice of the Presence of God from Brother Lawerence. Now that sin had been confessed, Christ had forgiven me and I was making steps in the Spirit to be close to him. Realizing again, in real time, that all my doing is for nothing without Christ. Abiding in him was the only way my life could produce genuine, sincere, healthy fruit. Relaxing (a term Fredrick Bruner says is a good modern translation for “trust in” Christ. See EHD, Scazzero) in Christ was the only way I can stay sustained in the long run. He has to be the thing/person I turn to when I am tempted, when I’m anxious, and when I’m empty.

This Is the basics of the Christian faith that I had to learn all over again. It’s been extremely humbling. It has brought me low and required me to trust in my God more than ever. In doing so, I have been lifted up in a way that I have never experienced before. My God is good.

In starting this blog up again, I hope it is helpful to know where I am coming from. I pray it never comes from a place of pride, but of knowing how vulnerable I am without Christ in my life. Many of my posts will discuss spirituality and what my walk with Christ looks like. I pray these find you well and while you are walking in the Spirit alongside me. If it doesn’t, I pray you find comfort in knowing there are others who struggle too and that you are reminded grace is not far from you.