I was recently reading an article about the theology of youth ministry and I happened upon an interesting question, illustrated here in youth ministry but applicable in the context of contemplation which has recently consumed my thinking. Kenda Dean writes,

"Do young people experience God as synonymous with particular people (like their small group) or a particular practice of ministry (like singing with a praise band) or a particular context (like camp)? Or have we helped them develop a repertoire of faith practices supple enough to take Christianity beyond any single faith experience?" (Getting out of God's Way, YouthWorker Journal, Jan/Feb 2005)

I've slowly been coming to realize our facination with destination has betrayed our possibilities for an intimate, ongoing relationship with God. We have come to live our lives at destinations like church, camp, or youth group, and ignore the journey, which in fact consumes the majority of our lives. I fear my failure to "practice the presence of God," as Brother Lawrence would say, has left me starving for the next experience and missing the joy, the beauty, the adventure of the journey. It's the heart of the contemplative, those disciplines or faith practices as Dean calls them, that brings the experience of God through the Spirit into our daily journey. So rather than relying on a 30-minute devotional time to last the whole day, the whole of our journey is filled with the joy of experiencing God. Idealistic, perhaps, but then what good is a vision that's not.

The Spiritual Life. What's that even mean? Everybody's got their own idea of what it's all about. Some people limit spirituality to all that Eastern mysticism stuff thinking it's all about meditating to a higher state of consciousness until you reach ultimate godness or something along those lines. A more popular answer in the church is that spirituality is determined by our private devotional lives. Those people feel they are spiritual when their daily routine includes some form or devotional Bible reading and prayer time. They are content with church attendance, blessing meals, and following an unwritten code of spiritual maturity as means towards a thriving connection with God. The irony befalling their situation is that their goal of self-righteousness is the very thing starving the inner life they claim to nurture.

Jesus spoke to this in Matthew 23. "Everything they do is for show....[They] are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside [they] are filthy-full of greed and self-indulgence!...[They] are like whitewashed tombs-beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity. [They] try to look like upright people outwardly, but inside [their] hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness."

Striving so hard to look righteous on the outside simply leads to a critical spirit, bitterness, anger, and judgmentalism. They must expend so much energy to keep up the facade of perfection, constantly comparing themselves to others who don't match up. Aren't those the very kinds of things we're trying to leave behind by nurturing this spiritual life? Keith Green understood this controversy when he wrote, "Somehow I feel that it would be more pleasing to God if I wasn't 'doing my duty' at all, but I was madly in love with Him, constantly praying to Him and living off His Word. In fact I know this to be true, but I can't seem to 'give up' my 'devotional life.' I am afraid that my soulish flesh will just take advantage of my leap of faith and turn me into a Word-less, prayer-less monster."

So we must turn our attention about the spiritual from the external to the internal. The spiritual life is just that, the life of the spirit, that very hunger in the soul of man that cries out for more. In our efforts to renew the inner life of the spirit by focusing on the external is like washing only the outside of the dishes, or decorating a coffin. So let's abandon our striving for external spirituality and allow a renewed inner life to transform our public life. This naturally begs the question, how does one go about renewing the inner life, which is exactly where we'll pick up next time.

I recently drove by a car dealership that advertised "Audi, loaded, $650." I found myself thinking there's gotta be something seriously wrong with that car if it's loaded and it's only $650. Shouldn't you be looking for a car that actually drives whether it's loaded or not? After all what good is a loaded Audi sitting in the driveway because the engine's trashed. 'At least it looks good.'

But isn't that often how we inventory our own spiritual lives? I sit in the pew every Sunday, whether I actually engage or not. I read my Bible every morning, whether I actually learn anything or not. I spend my five minutes a day thinking about prayer requests, whether I actually connect with God or not. I fear that the church is full of fully loaded Christians that, when it all comes down to it, have nothing but rusty engine parts under the hood. They look great on the outside, but when it comes to a real relationship with God they're found lacking.

The tragedy is that many well meaning Christians don't even acknowledge the gaping hole at the center of their lives because they're too busy, as the adage goes, rearranging deck furniture on the Titanic. They exhaust all their energies working so hard at being a good Christian, keeping up with their spiritual disciplines to-do list, which ironically is never satisfied, and they don't even recognize that as a problem! They don't even comprehend what Jesus meant when He said His yoke was easy and His burden light. And we wonder why so many Christians are left feeling tired, overworked, and unfulfilled, doubting why they ever signed up for this in the first place.

Now I'll be the first to say this is just a symptom of many deeper issues, but toward a remedy I've been discovering some additional contemplative disciplines that we often forget. Somehow we've gotten the idea that silence, solitude, fasting, journaling, meditating, etc. were all gratefully buried in the dark ages with the ancient monks. But perhaps these long forgotten practices are the very thing we need to transform our spirituality from simply a necessary inconvenience into a meaningful relationship with the Almighty.

More on this later, but for now I'll suffice to say, take some time to slow down. Take a vacation from the exhausting efforts that keep us captive when we put our faith in the law, or better yet, take early retirement. Remember, Jesus didn't come to earth so we could spend a lifetime perfecting our spiritual duties; He came that we might "know the Father." May that be the cry of your life, and mine.