August 15, 2017
 
 
 
 
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Led by the Holy Spirit,
St. John's mission is to inspire people to grow into the heart and mind of Christ by engaging together in worshiping, serving, and spiritual formation.

 
 
 
 
 

Embarking on the Spiritual Journey Session 2:
What draws us to God? What holds us back?


 
 
 
 

This is the second of seven readings and questions to ponder for our fall Adult Spiritual Formation series “Embarking on the Spiritual Journey.” Please read and save this column. Spend some time reflecting on the questions, and jotting down your thoughts. Plan to gather after 9:30am worship on September 24th for small group discussion. Material is drawn from pages 19-31 of “An Invitation to the Spiritual Journey” by The Rev. John P. Gorsuch, and is used with the generous permission of his family. For the introduction to and all seven issues of this series please see our website.

 

We begin today by acknowledging the draw of the spiritual life and our resistance to it. Gorsuch writes, “Again and again I have found that for the spiritual life to prosper, it is important to acknowledge right at the beginning the tension that most of us feel between our attraction to the abundant life promised when we let go of that which is less than God, and our anxiety about what might happen to us if we get serious about opening ourselves more fully to the Holy One.”

 

From his work as a spiritual director, Gorsuch found that whether people first taste God through nature, church, or other human beings, these things most commonly draw people from that first taste toward deeper relationship with God:

 

+ Peace, hope, love, or joy

+ A sense of oneness with the depths of life

+ Awareness of the beauty that lies at the heart of things

+ An experience of the healing power of God and the self-integration that results

+ A new start—forgiveness

+ A sense of serving a larger purpose

+ Awe and wonder

+ All is well even when it isn’t

+ Being in communion with the Divine Presence

 

Sometimes, there is an emptiness or shallowness in our lives that reminds us we are lacking, and that sense of lack draws us toward God. “…Over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living we know we are passing by. Strained by the very mad pace of our outer daily burdens, we are further strained by an inner uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power.”

 

So if we know we are missing something, and we sense that God is that “something” then what is it that holds us back? Again, from his work as spiritual director, Gorsuch found that “many people can’t move deeper into their spiritual journeys until they look at their worst fantasies of what might happen if they were to get more intentional about making room for God…Certain common responses emerge as fears are acknowledged:”

 

+ God, if there is a God, might let me down—I don’t care to put that to the test

+ If this means going to the slums like Mother Theresa, I’m not cut out for that life

+ I might have to give up everything I enjoy

+ This might lead to martyrdom

+ I might become so spiritual my family and friends will laugh at me—or leave me

+ I’ll lose my autonomy

+ God will turn out to be a perfectionistic taskmaster

+ God may insist that I toil day and night with no time out for fun

+ It takes more trust than I’ve got—in God and in myself

+ I resent the idea of surrendering my hard won independence to anyone, including God

+ “Religious experience” scares me

+ Does this mean I have to go to church every Sunday?

+ God might want all of me when I’m only willing to give some of me

+ I don’t want to lose control

+ I’m not good enough

+ I’ll have to change and that’d be too painful

+ I may find God doesn’t exist

 

So that we don’t stay trapped between our hopes and our fears, Gorsuch suggests that “there are two steps which help us move through this barrier of fear.”

 

1. “The first step is to undo the false images of God we frequently carry from our childhood.” If we were taught that God is an “oppressor, enemy, or terrifying presence” or taskmaster we have to let go of those false images. “The real God is a God of health and wholeness, not of tyranny and oppression.”

 

2. “There is a second step we can take if we are to move through our fears. It can be of great help to get in touch with our own best experiences of God. When we do so, we discover there is a great difference between our worst fears of what may happen to us if we go on the spiritual journey and the actual experiences we have had with God. When we remember what God is really like and how good it is to be with God, we take heart. When we recall the texture of our encounters with God and how we felt during and after them, powerful, healing memories are summoned and we can move ahead.”

 

What do these “best experiences” look like? For some it is being awestruck by nature. For others it may be encountering a richly authentic and gracious person. Some people cite an instantaneous sense of the order and connected-ness of things. It can feel like being flooded with peace or love or joy. It can feel like something profound is working inside the depths of you. It can be like “feeling nourished, as though [you are] in the presence of a Divine Companion” who [has] nothing but [your] best interests at heart.” This list is obviously incomplete, for the ways God touches us are infinite in number.

 

We are usually much harder on ourselves than God is on us. If we can learn to trust our best experiences of God as being reflective of God’s nature, we are closer to discovering who God really is. Of the many people with whom Gorsuch worked during his ministry, “most report[ed] that they experience[d] God as a deep and accepting Presence. They [were] aware that the Divine Presence [left] them feeling both more at home in life and more challenged to grow. They [felt] opened up. Most of all they regain[ed] their trust. They believe[d] that God [would] be with them on their journey. This [gave] them the courage to move ahead.”

 

“In the Loving Presence people become more open to the possibility of letting go of old fears and resistances. They discover that those things that cause them to hold back from the spiritual path, while still present and often very powerful, have begun to have less of a death grip.”

 

“The spiritual life,” writes Gorsuch, “is a natural human activity that requires not special powers but the willingness to open doors…Frederick Buechner says it beautifully: We are all of us more mystics than we believe or choose to believe…We have seen more than we let on, even to ourselves. Through some moment of beauty or pain, some sudden turning of our lives, we catch glimmers at least of what the saints are blinded by, only then, unlike the saints, we tend to go on as though nothing happened. To go on as though something has happened, even though we are not sure what it was or just where we are supposed to go with it, is to enter the dimension of life that religion is a word for.”

 

 

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

 

1. Can you identify what it was that first drew you toward God? What seems to draw you now?

 

 

2. What images of God were given to you—by a parent, teacher, mentor, friend, or experience—in your childhood? Which images have led you to resist God? Which images have served to open the doors between you and God?

 

 

3. Can you identify one or more of your best experiences of God? Can you tell the story of these “best experiences”? What did they reveal to you about the nature of God? How did they change or shape your image of yourself?

 

 

4. If you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is, in fact, not as hard on you as you are on yourself, what self-expectations or self-images could you let go of?

 

 

 

SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER

 

Revelation 3:20           Behold I stand at the door and knock

 

John 14:7                     If you really know me you will know my Father as well