Being Spiritually Dry

Have you ever felt spiritually dry even though you have been doing all the right things?

When that happens we often make one of two choices. We either blame our church because it no longer meets our needs ("There's too much milk and not enough meat") or we blame ourselves. In this second instance, we decide that we need to fix the problem - often by doing more - more Bible study, more prayer, more acts of service, etc.

Maybe, just maybe, there is no problem that needs to be fixed at all. Could it be that the God who made you and loves you has pulled Himself away just a bit to create in your heart a greater hunger for Him? Is it possible that instead of being chronically disappointed in you, He actually wants to be closer to you?

Could it be that spiritual dryness is an invitation for intimacy and not an opportunity for guilt and criticism?

I think so.

The Plan of the Enemy

What do you suppose Satan's chief strategy is?

Does he want everyone to ruin their lives with addictions?

Is he content to keep people from salvation through constant the distractions of life around us?

Or does he hope to see us waste ourselves in a messy stew of fear, pride and self-absorption?

Here's my vote: The chief aim of Satan is to keep us from falling in love with God. If he can do that, then we are never able to enter into the Christian life in its fullness and probably won't desire to become Christians in the first place.

How does Satan keep us from falling in love? By ruining our capacity to love. Addictions, abuse, emotional wounds, performance-based relationships, nearly everything harmful in life helps to destroy our ability to give and to receive love. Without that ability, we will never truly know God.

Emotional healing can sometimes be a long and painful process. And yet, as we become healthy emotionally, it is then that we can experience the great love that the Father has for us. Once we know that love, we enter into real life. We may not understand the things that happen to us, but because we know we are deeply loved, the need to understand no longer has the same power.

Being loved beats understanding every time.

Walking with God Honestly

Jesus said that He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).

One of the implications of this verse is that, because He is truth, we will experience the presence of God on a consistent basis only as we live in truth. In this case, truth means far more than simple honesty. It speaks to being genuine and truly yourself. This is difficult to do in a world that expects each of us to be and to behave certain ways. In addition, we live in a church culture that places its own burdens of performance on us.

In response to these pressures, and out of a desire to be a good Christian, we learn early on how to behave properly - often at the cost of being ourselves. We no longer feel safe in church being ourselves, so we hide ourselves and put on a show of acceptability to those around us.

I have decided that one of the most precious gifts I have in my life are the people who are safe enough that I am able to be myself with them. They help reconcile me to myself and draw me closer to God. I wonder what would happen if we decided to leave behind the dysfunctional rules of how we ought to behave and decided to be genuine, to walk in truth.

Maybe we would find that sense of community and belonging that we long for.

Maybe we would come to terms with our struggles instead of hiding from them.

Maybe we would find God in a deeper way.

Finding Ourselves

A few decades ago, it became popular for people to step back from life and take time to find themselves. They would leave college or work and venture out into the world to discover who they were. Many became temporary hippies. Others made it their vocation.

What these people had right was that they understood how the world around them had defined them and they wanted to find a place of deeper meaning. They did not want to be known as an accountant or as so-and-so's child. They wanted to discover who they were apart from those things.

What they had wrong was the notion that humans can define themselves apart from the world around them. We all get our identities either by what we do or who we are in relationship with. Men tend to focus on the task-based identity, i.e. "I am a writer." Women, on the other hand, lean a bit more towards the relational identity, i.e. "I am Kevin's wife." In either case, we cannot separate who we are from the world of tasks and relationships we live in. That's just how it is. The idea of the autonomous identity is a false one.

The problem, however, is that when we choose to find our identity in the tasks and relationships of a fallen world, we will end up with a fallen identity. The mirror we are looking in is too badly damaged to give us a true picture of ourselves.

The only way to discover our true self is to draw our identity from the One Who made us. It is as we understand who we are in relation to God that we see our real identity. Therefore, the more we are able to see God for who He really is, the more we are able to see ourselves for who we really are.

And, as we look upon the cross that Jesus died on, we discover that we are the well-loved children of an incredibly loving Father. We can then step into an eternal identity that is better than any earthly identity we could ever find.

Walking by Faith

There comes a point in our Christian growth when God calls us to walk by faith. Walking by faith has two key components - having faith and surrendering. This means that our walk by faith may have a couple of different stages to it (Note: there is no set path from stage to stage, however).

Baby Stage (Low Faith, Low Surrender) - In this baby stage, we do not really trust God, nor have we surrendered ourselves to Him in a significant way. We are walking by faith in name only. This is the typical starting point for most of us. The key indicators of being in this stage is that our life matters a great deal to us and we do not think God can or will take care of us.

There is a second group in this category of low faith and low surrender, but they are not babies in the faith at all. This group consists of people who have such a negative emotional picture of themselves and the Lord that they cannot trust Him or surrender themselves to Him in a significant way. Typically, they are well aware of their struggles and really want things to be different. However, they are in the ICU Stage (Low Faith, Low Surrender) where much healing needs to happen before they can walk by faith.

Self-Sufficient Stage (High Faith, Low Surrender) - When we believe in the goodness of God, but we are not yet ready to lay down our self-will to Him, we are in the self-sufficient stage. It is possible for us to have been Christians for a long time and to be well-regarded by others, and yet still be in this stage. This is especially true if we are very talented or have a lot of worldly wisdom. Because our hearts are so deceitful, it is also possible to live in this stage and not even be aware of it. The key indicators are that we still consider our lives to be important and we still think too highly of ourselves. It is a place of great, albeit subtle, pride.

Wounded Stage (Low Faith, High Surrender) - Frequently, people who have been wounded in the past are willing to surrender themselves to the Lord, but do not have any expectation of receiving anything good from Him. They are willing to pay the cost to follow Jesus, but they walk by faith in not being blessed instead of in being blessed. Because they simply cannot face the disappointment of being let down once again, it is easier to just not expect anything. The key indicators of someone in this stage are unresolved abuse, rejection and authority issues.

Faithful Stage (High Faith, High Surrender) - The person in this stage has embraced the paradox of losing their life to gain it. He or she places no importance on their life anymore - they do not love it even to death. They exist only to serve the Lord. At the same time, this person has discovered the tremendous love that the Father has for them. As a result, they gladly trust Him and have no fear of what may happen.

Notice this, though, what may happen may not be pleasant. The person in the faithful stage is no longer personally invested in how their life turns out. Their life is fully surrendered to God and they have released any claim they may have had on what God does with it. Instead, their satisfaction and success in life is found in the love of the Father - and this allows them to have great faith that whatever the Father does with them is good.

Also keep in mind that the stages presented here are not distinct categories. There are gradients to faith and surrender. Rarely will we find ourselves exactly in one category or another. However, we can begin to see what our dominant tendencies are and ask the Lord to work specifically on those areas so that we can mature in our walk with Him.

Conclusion - The way we grow in being able to walk by faith is simple: The more we know the Father and His love for us, the better we can surrender, the more faith we can have, and the more healing we will experience. So, we don't exert ourselves to generate more faith or greater surrender by ourselves. Instead, we make it our goal to press in to know the Father. As we do that, all the rest gets taken care of.

Freedom in Christ - Free to be Ourselves

I have been spending my time lately contemplating freedom. Here are a few thoughts:

1. We limit our own freedom: Although most of us say we want to be genuine with others, we are often afraid of what others may think. So, rather than be genuine, we perform, presenting to others who we think they want us to be, not who we are.

This masquerade has a couple of unintended consequences. First, we begin to think that we also need to perform for God. We act differently at church than we do at home. We become dishonest in prayer - telling God what we think He wants to hear, not what we actually think or feel. In doing so, we lose the opportunity for a real relationship with God. It all becomes a dry act of religion with no life in it.

Another unintended consequence is that as we get better and better at performing for others, we lose sight of who we are. We begin to identify ourselves with the persona we present to others more than the person that we really are. We become lost. As a result, it becomes increasingly impossible for us to have meaningful relationships with others since who we really are is never a part of the relationship.

2. We limit others freedom. We all have a natural tendency to try to define a person in a particular way. When we make our definition of someone rigid and inflexible, our relationship with them will be limiting on who they are and uncomfortable for them. Probably the best example of this is when we are around family members who have not seen us in a while. When we are together, it feels like they are squeezing us back into who we used to be instead of letting us be who we have become. We notice the discomfort when it is we who are being squeezed. Still, we continue to squeeze others because it would become uncomfortable to us if we were to actually give them the freedom to change.

3. Freedom is found in Christ. The best way to allow ourselves to be who we really are is in a genuine relationship with Jesus. When we know the love of God in a deep and personal way, then our deepest needs for security & belonging are met. Then, we are able to risk being ourselves from a position of strength instead of having to fiercely guard against rejection.

In addition, when we cry out to God to know Him more, He begins to work in us the healing we need to be who we really are. You see, He wants a relationship with us and not any persona we put on. So, seeking intimacy with God calls forth from within us our genuine selves and puts us in a place of emotional security that gives us the courage to live genuinely with others - and to let them be genuine with us. This process is not always as easy or pleasant as it may sound.

Still, perhaps today, Jesus is calling out to us. If you are like me, your genuine self has spent too much time buried away. And now, the Savior is walking up to the tomb, calling out to the Lazarus in each of us, "Come forth!"

4. Freedom is Attractive. Of course, what I have written here is just one aspect of the freedom God gives us. There is much, much more. However, in a world that is hungry for real people, the freedom to be ourselves is perhaps even more appealing to them than the message of salvation. We, as lovers of Jesus who live life genuinely, will naturally call forth to the many Lazarus's we meet. Our own honesty will cry out to them to come forth, too.

Where do we find our identity?

Here's a thought:

We develop our identities from our interaction with the rest of the world. What our families, friends and others say to us and about us helps form our opinion of who we are. Add to that all of the self-talk we have inside and we have most of the data we use to form our self concept. Here's the catch: If you form your identity based on the feedback of a fallen world, you will end up with a fallen identity.

It is when we decide to choose to draw our self concept from what God says about us that we enter into our true identity.

A Loving God & Suffering World

Christians throughout the centuries have wrestled with this topic. Why does God allow suffering? Why doesn't He intervene in horrible situations?

I am not going to attempt to answer this question. But I do want to make a few observations:

1. One problem in finding an answer is that intellectual answers are often not effective in dealing with emotional hurts. I may have a great theology on God & Suffering, but it may still do me little good when tragedy strikes.

2. Sometimes, when we question God, it is not in order to learn, but to accuse. If God were to answer us in those times, He would, in effect, be making Himself accountable to us. It is a dangerous place as a creature to be able to sit in judgement of the creator.

3. Perhaps God is silent when we ask this question because He knows that what we need is comfort, not solutions. I remember as an Air Force chaplain having people ask me in the midst of a tragedy, "Why did God let this happen?' My usual answer was, "This is miserable, isn't it?" Most of the time, people did not ask for a better explanation. What they really were doing was expressing their pain in a theological question and they really didn't need a theological answer.

4. I have found that as I grew deeper in the love of God, the importance of questioning what happens becomes less and less. I am more content to accept what I don't understand because I know the love of the Father for me. So, even when what is happening makes no sense, I can trust in Him and not my understanding of things (Prov 3:5-6). So, the questions remain, but they no longer nag at me because they are no longer that important. In the midst of struggle, instead of fighting God to understand, I can bathe in His love and find comfort instead.

Time of Testing & Rejection

I have been going through a time of testing for the past year. There have been different courses of action I could take, each of which is Biblical. However, the Lord has been silent in many ways about what I should do. I am starting to see that part of the reason for His silence is what I would do if He spoke.

You see, I am committed to the Lord and He knows that if I knew the right answer to my current situation that I would do it. Somehow, though, I'm not sure He cares that much in this case whether I can figure out the right answer or not - because at some level finding the right answer is a means for me to manipulate God and sacrifice who I am. That is because my rejection issues have helped to create a real people-pleasing streak in me that has led me to ignore who I am in order to be who others want me to be.

So, I think this time of testing for me is not a test of what I will do, but more a test to see if I will choose to be genuine with God - true to myself before Him.

So, there are two options before me. I can try to determine God's will and just do it. Or I can wrestle with Him and be honest about myself and my desires instead. In the first option, my actions and my relationship with God are based on a fear of rejection. In the second option, my relationship, because it is honest to who I am, is based on acceptance by Him. If I do that second option, then even if my desires are off the mark, I am putting myself in a place to allow Him to love me as I am and transform me into who He wants me to be. This is vastly different from taking the more expedient route of just figuring out what He wants me to do and doing it.

Comfort, Stress & Failure

I have come to understand that all of life is stressful. I know that sounds a bit trite, but hold on. Most of us, whether we realize it or not, think that life would be better if we were able to change our circumstances in one way or another. While that is true to some degree, we usually don't think of the new stress we gain from the new circumstances.

There is a stress to being poor and a stress to being rich, a stress to having a lot of responsibilities and a stress to being bossed around. None of us can escape it so we need to find a way to deal with it.

This is where comfort comes in. We all cope with the difficulties in life by seeking comfort. Sometimes, we receive comfort from God directly. Sometimes, it is through other people. Unfortunately, we are also constantly tempted to find comfort in unhealthy ways - for example: food, sex, alcohol, drugs, recreation, television, sports, etc.

Some of these are clearly wrong in themselves, while others seem more benign. The issue is whether our seeking comfort strengthens us to face the stress better or is merely an escape to avoid the stress. Perhaps an afternoon watching a movie is a good thing when you are feeling down. A nightly television zombie-zone because life is so overwhelming is probably not the way God wants us to be comforted.

I think many Christian leaders who have fallen are victims of unhealthy comfort. I do not want to excuse their behavior, nor do I want to say it was not sin. I do want to highlight that they are often subject to a level of stress and spiritual warfare that most of us do not encounter. I wonder if they had had healthy mechanisms for comfort built into their lives whether all of the leaders would have fallen.

In 1 Sam 30, David had just lost his whole family and possessions to Amalekite raiders. To make matters worse, all of his followers did, too, and they were talking of stoning David. In the midst of this great stress, we see in verse 6 that David found strength in the Lord.

God is the God of all comfort (2 Cor 3) and it is He who is our strength. The question is whether we will choose Him as our source of comfort or run after other things.

Authentic Spirituality

Much is written in Evangelical circles these days about spirituality. For the most part, a lot of it can be distilled down to the idea of emotional authenticity. In other words we are not genuinely spiritual unless we live in the moment with our emotions. It is then that we have courage and are real with all around us. This, we are told, is authentic spirituality.

The problem, of course, with this line of thinking is that it is not really spiritual at all. It is teaching us how to be authentic humans, not how to be spiritually authentic.

Spiritual authenticity comes when we are fully emotionally engaged in life and we are experiencing a relationship with God that transcends our intellect and emotions. It is this communion with God from the core of our being expressed in a real, vulnerable way to others that is true spiritual authenticity.

Life as a Response

In some sense, everything we do is a response. Even when we seem to be initiating something, we are still responding to the environment around us. In addition, every action we take is in some measure a response to everything that we have experienced before.

When we encounter the presence of God in a significant way, our lives cannot help but change because that incredible experience becomes part of the basis for all of our future responses. When we can get immersed in His love, then our responses in life become more Christ-like because of the experience of His love becomes such a powerful force in determining our responses.

Emotional Healing

One of those paradoxes in life is that the best healer of emotional wounds is God. However, those same emotional hurts are also the very things that keep us from approaching God for healing. Someone who has been abused and rejected will be afraid of further rejection. A person who has been deeply shamed will experience an even greater sense of shame just thinking about approaching God.

The cure for this is the slow process of coming to terms with Who God really is. Most of our fear of approaching Him comes from the underlying belief that He will hurt us in some way. When we begin to discover that "a bruised reed He will not break" then we are able to trust Him, even just a tiny bit, with our deepest wounds and find healing from them.