I have had a couple of things on my mind as of late and I'm not sure if they go together or not, we'll see. First I want to start with something from Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli. A very visual example that he gives in his book of how our spirituality is non-linear is he shows a chart of a line representing our growth in a scraggly rising and falling manner. It is inconsistent and, as the title of the book suggests, messy.
As I think about it, I like how true it is, but I have to admit that it is incredibly frustrating. I think we all desire to see change and progress as could be seen in the use of these trigger words in recent campaigns. If we don't, we become restless and wonder what we need to do or we become complacent and consumed by the lull of same-ity. We know that relationship with the Ultimate Being, studying the scriptures, and learning through each other are essentials to growth and sometimes we lock ourselves into systems that we promise ourselves guarantee more spirituality. We quarantine ourselves from sin, systematically trying to eliminate it and hoping that increased frequency of Christian-related activity will help grow us and quell our fleshly urges.
Neither supporting tendencies toward hyper-religiousness nor treading the trite bashing of it, I want to say that I understand why we trap ourselves into this. I see that I am attracted to the idea that when I do weight-training I can markedly see change in strength and endurance. With this in mind, it is a little disturbing when Yaconelli tells me that all my efforts won't guarantee me exponential growth. I'd like to think that I could put a huge spiritual deposit and make monthly contributions and that these will compound and...vaboom!
I am also thinking about how this is contrary to a certain theologian's ideas whose name escapes me. He said that we enter into multiple "crises" of faith and I believe that he thought that after the 3rd, we are capable of living a sinless (or at least nearly) life because we are so reliant upon God and the Spirit. Through the crises, we have drawn very close to God.
This sounds iffy to me, but I can appreciate the beautiful concept of a life that draws so heavily on the Spirit, that is aligned with God and constantly abiding.
Yet, I am drawn back to the idea of the messiness because it makes sense of our humanity. We have our ups and downs, our emotions make us human and they pull us in all different directions at once. How is it that we can be doing everything we can and go through the darkest of times and on the other side of things, how is that we can be a filthy prodigal and yet close to God? I guess what we need to see is that it is not what we are doing. And yes, our spiritual growth chart may fluctuate, but I believe that at the end of that chart is God, that if we are constantly moving in his direction we will find Him and it won't matter how high or low the line reads, because we've found Him.
