Spirituality???

The spiritual life is hard work and anything less than that is a distortion. (Eugene Peterson)

I have been thinking a fair bit about the Spiritual journey that Mel and I are on. My Dad the other night had just come back from a Spiritual retreat that was run by a local Catholic Spirituality centre, and has been receiving Spiritual Direction from an Old Catholic nun. She made a comment to him that has really made me stop and think. She said to my Dad that “Protestants know the word of God, but the true Catholics know the God of the Word.” At first I thought yeah that’s good, I would like to know both a lot better and find a balance between the two. I got to thinking though about my vague fear of other Spiritual people. I’m talking about Spiritual people that are into the whole New Age movement. Some of these people have a sense of spirituality that puts most, if not all Christians/disciples of Jesus to shame.
Then the old nun’s statement made sense. Maybe my fear of their spirituality is due to my own lack of Spirituality and connection with the one true God; and is due to me fearing that my theology won’t stand up to their spirituality.
So maybe if I was a far more Spiritual person, and not only knew the Word of God, but also knew the God of the Word, the fear would be reduced.

I would like to know God like some of the old boys of the bible, the Peters and David’s, and non-biblical like the Mother Theresa’s and those kinda characters. I think that link between theology and action has a massive part to play in Spirituality. I don’t know, it’s something worth exploring.

I spoke at a youth holiday camp leadership thing they had for their youth leaders, anyhow, I got an email from one of the people who was in my workshop. I chose some of his choice questions/statement that seems to always pop up in my life. It made me aware again of our general lack of Spirituality, (using the nun’s statement as a measuring stick) His statements were:

“The whole idea behind a Love that has no conditions, no requirements or demands, is such a powerful thing, but something that is so terrifyingly difficult it almost makes me stop and wonder whether I am truly a Christian at all. I mean, don't get me wrong, I was very inspired and motivated by your message, but it makes me wonder just how much I do love God if I'm not even willing to follow His main command. I mean, do I really want God to move through my life? Or, is it I just want Him to make me feel good while I go about living my life the way I want to?”

“Its easy to believe in Jesus when all He is to you is a Genie in a bottle. But, when He actually confronts you and commands something of you, somehow you begin to doubt His existence. Well, I do anyway.”

I felt quite honoured to be asked to speak there. But mostly it just weirded me out. Like I’ve done the whole preaching thing before and that’s fine, but watching people write things down that I was saying, ha that just seems stupid! I find that when I speak all (ok some of) my fears and issues seem to boil to the surface, but to those that were there I hope and pray that something in it encouraged you to move forward toward Jesus.