Everyday spirituality
Most of life’s problems can be solved with baking soda and vinegar. These two household items frequently appear in the world’s favourite lists of life-hacks. Who doesn’t love a good life-hack? Those weird, wacky and sometimes wonderful solutions to everyday issues make our complex lives easier and, yes, cleaner. This advice goes far beyond practical domestic solutions to problems. The internet is stuffed with self-help instructions aimed at our personal and professional development. Some of it is even helpful!
So, I have been wondering, how much 21st Century Christians are influenced by such a life-hack society approach to our spiritual growth. After all, Christians appear to have a growing fascination with spiritual practises and exercises. There are no shortage of bestseller authors advocating monastic practises and contemplative exercises for our spiritual health. Of course, there is much to be gained from ancient ways and a slowed-down discipleship of reflection and contemplation. Undoubtedly many of us need to find times of stillness in a chaotic world to know that God is God! So don’t give up on your Lectio365, quiet times or silent contemplation!
However, I wonder, if our modern, pragmatic culture undermines a profound relationship with God our Father replacing shallow techniques for rich relationships.
Question: Are there spiritual practices or disciplines that you find really helpful? Do you think there is a tendency to become too absorbed in how to be spiritual than in God himself?
If you are anything like me then you may have found that attempting to emulate the rules and rhythms of monastic elites cloistered in remote seclusion, or to follow the practices of our Celtic forefathers who prayed for hours waist deep in the North Atlantic to be a tad intimidating if not impossible.
Perhaps we become distracted by the means not the end, preoccupied with the tools rather than the task. At best spiritual disciplines are spluttering, broken-down and inefficient vehicles which help bring us, hungry and thirsty, to our God of grace. In the end, it seems to me, that spiritual maturity comes not as a result of a frantic self-improvement programme, but when hungry hearts turn to God regularly to be filled and reshaped.
Matthew 6
We are in Matthew 6 this week. In this part of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches about the three core Jewish formational practises: giving, fasting and praying! Not a bad place for us to begin! None of these are to be seen as a means of forcing God’s hand of blessing or of self-building a mature faith. Instead, they are intended as a posture for connection, offering our hungry bodies and souls, surrendering our possessions, and fixing our attention so that we might position ourselves in front of God’s “incoming grace”.
Jesus is not a life coach. He offers so much more than advice to enhance our spiritual, moral or relationship skills. He offers a completely new life! A life in union with God our creator. What an amazing privilege.
Matthew 6 (verses 9-14) centres on Jesus’ gift to his disciples of the “Lord’s prayer”. This is so much more than a prayer. It is a way of life, a spirituality, for every day. It is a way of relating to the one who loved us and gave himself for us. It positions us as dependent children in the hands of a mighty and loving God who alone is the source of transforming grace.
Jesus begins the prayer with an astonishing invitation to connection and belonging. With jaw-dropping surprise he essentially says:
The Almighty and Holy God says: “You can call me “Abba”, Father.” Jesus’ invitation to know God as Father is ground zero for an explosion that reverberates through the New Testament and early church. “Abba” is the heart cry of new life in Jesus. “Abba” is the heartfelt confirmation that we are forgiven, remade, adopted and assured of God’s love.
How wonderful that our growth depends not on clambering up the ladder of spiritual expertise but “in pressing on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” Phil 3:12. That our maturity is growth in knowing him, our transformation on appropriating by faith all that God has done for us in Christ.
Question: How does knowing God as Abba, Father through Jesus impact my life? What has God done for us in Christ that I need to take hold of?
Take hold!
Iain
Please note we are dropping some questions into these blogs to offer conversation starters for Lifegroup studies or casual chats.