Anticipating YHWH
Part 1
By David
Drury
If you’re looking for part 2 click
this
Perhaps it is impossible to make any spiritual Pilgrim’s
Progress without encountering obstacles, barriers, and even a Slough of Despond
along the way. So I’m resigned to the
fact that internal struggle goes hand in hand with the very idea of a
“spiritual walk.” However, I also
believe that we should be about the business of overcoming those
struggles. I’ve begun to work on my most
difficult ones first, rather than spiritually walking around them. Among my many spiritual struggles have been
these chief ones:
I STRUGGLE WITH THE DAILY PART OF DAILY DEVOTIONS
Being
a more spontaneous person with little rhyme or reason to my daily schedule, I am very inconsistent and any kind of
“daily devotions.” Some of this
pressure to have identical “quiet times” every day at the same time is external
through “corporate Christendom.” How
else are we to sell high-profit-margin mauve devotionals if we Evangelical
drones are not cranking through them on a daily basis? But, there is a true lack of “dailyness” to my life in general, and likewise to my
spiritual walk. It comes in longer
seasons of intensity and devotion rather than the “daily check-in”. This struggle is real and should be overcome
somehow.
I STRUGGLE WITH THE IDEA OF A PERSONAL
RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST
Having theologically trained myself to view “the
Church” as one body and the formation of “the Bride” as a corporate not
individual task, I’ve always had trouble
with our over-emphasis on a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” Is this really as important as it is made out
to be? The entire Evangelical Project is
based on this fundamental. Our
commitment times, our qualifiers, our distinctives,
our dogma are all aligned with this overwhelming sense that a “personal
relationship” is what it’s all about.
Why do I get the feeling that we’ve overstated it? When someone talks about Jesus as their “best
friend” or prays, “Daddy” to Him why do I get marginally offended by their
overly-familiar speech about the Almighty?
Why do I think some worship songs are too graphic in their description
of our near “boyfriendish” relationship with Jesus
Christ, seeing his face, staring at his beauty, holding me close? Yikes!
I suspect I will always desire to dial this down and
retain some sense of the transcendence
of God (rather than only his imminence).
And likewise I will always work to
restore the communal experience in the Body of Christ which
has been sacrificed to elevate the individual
experience with Christ. However,
there is enough evidence in lives of the scriptural giants of the faith to show
me that I too should be pursuing a relationship with (rather than simply to)
the Creator God and his only Son my Savior.
I STRUGGLE TO CULTIVATE MY SPIRIT’S EMOTIONAL SIDE
Moving on to my third area of struggle, I’ve noticed that I’ve always been a “horse-plodding”
incremental-growth type with little emotional reaction or ecstasy to my
experience. I’m one-hairs-breadth
from a rigid Presbyterian in this regard.
Speaking in tongues (though frequent in many of my peers and somewhat
common in the lives of some of my church members that may read this) is
something I’ve not only never done but never even really wanted to do. Crying
while singing a worship song is likewise a foreign tongue to me. I am more likely to be moved while reading an
intellectually stimulating book than I am while praying to the Holy Spirit or
contemplating my navel. I may make a
significant spiritual decision or vow and even stick with it for my entire life
(I’ve stuck with a few that would shock you), but that moment of decision will
not often be accompanied by much emotion.
Yes, I am a male and yes I believe that emotion is not the “sanctifier”
of experience nor it’s only confirmation.
However, I again feel there is something missing here and so I’ve been
on a journey to tap into my emotions.
Where the faint trace lies, I’ve attempted to cultivate it, for
instance.
With these three great barriers in my spiritual
formation I’ve been on the hunt for a unifying concept that might enter into
each of them and build the bridge for me over the hurdle, rather than around
them, through them rather than disqualifying them, by them rather than in spite
of them.
That’s the journey I’m on and my struggles. Perhaps you have some similar struggles in
your life or know others who have.
Click this
for part 2 of the journey.
_________
© 2006 by David Drury
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