Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s spiritual walk

When a brother or sister in Christ asks me how my walk with God is going, I never know what to say. I don’t even know how to tell if my walk with God is going well or not. Will I feel particularly close to God, or ‘super-spiritual’? Is it when I am reading the Bible and praying regularly? Well, I’d fail on both counts.

In truth, I’ve never been able to keep up regular quiet times for any length of time. I’ve tried different methods – a variety of devotional books, Bible-reading guides, schedules for reading through the whole Bible in a year, outlines of questions for quiet times, morning quiet times, evening quiet times, afternoon quiet times… It’s never lasted more than a few weeks. I’m not very good at praying, either. I feel weird praying aloud by myself, but if I pray silently I get distracted easily. I’ve tried writing my prayers down, but it takes quite a long time, and it feels a bit stilted and excessively formal. Sometimes I pray when I’m going for a walk, but again, I’m not very good at keeping my thoughts under control. Sometimes I feel particularly aware of the love of God, or especially convicted of the truth of Christianity, but at other times I feel very distant.

I was thinking about this recently, and I remembered a book by Bill Hybels, Courageous Leadership, that we studied at church when I was on the deaconate a few years back. I’m not generally a big fan of the kind of material that comes out of massive American churches (with the notable exception of John Piper), but there were parts of this book that I found very encouraging. I recalled a chapter where Hybel’s discusses the different ways in which people relate to God. So, the other night, I reread it.

Hybels writes that he meets church leaders all over the world “who admit to me privately, in hushed tones, that they have never been able to establish and sustain a close, consistent, vital walk with Jesus.”

They tell me how ashamed they feel when other leaders describe their consistent practice of disciplines like solitude, fasting, prayer, journaling, or Scripture memorization. Leaders often end their private confessions of inadequacy by asking, "Is there something wrong with me? Do I have a character flaw or spiritual defect? Why can’t I establish and sustain a vital walk with Christ?”

Often I suggest that perhaps they have never discovered their spiritual pathway – their unique means of moving toward vital union with Christ.

Hybels describes seven different pathways:

1. Relational
2. Intellectual
3. Serving
4. Contemplative
5. Activist
6. Creation
7. Worship

Hybels does point out that most people will not neatly fit into one of these pathways, and the seven he describes are only a sample – he cites a book called Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas, which I think I’ll try to get hold of. He also warns against comparing one’s own pathway with someone else’s – “pathway envy”. Or, as I think Thomas puts it, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s spiritual walk.”

I particularly like the description of the Intellectual pathway:

People who thrive on the intellectual pathway are those whose minds must be fully engaged before they can make significant spiritual progress. When these folks sit in testimonial services where people are passionately describing God’s amazing activity in their lives, they find themselves thinking, Where’s the beef? These heart-warming stories are all well and good, but where’s the substance? Where’s the theological data? I need something to chew on. I’m dying here!

These people can’t have their morning devotions without two or three opened commentaries flanking their Bibles. They carry several intellectually stretching books with them wherever they go. They gravitate toward classes, seminars, and special events that will challenge their thinking. Why? Because they know that their hearts will never fully engage until their minds are filled with truth…

For people wired up this way, once their minds are fully convinced, their hearts and will quickly follow and their convictions are rock solid. I think it is quite possible that the apostle Paul had an intellectual pathway. For him, the transformation of the world depended on the “renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:2). Paul was quick to appeal to the rational side of human nature, apparently convinced that once a person’s mind belonged to God, everything else would follow. Win the intellectual argument, and it would be game, set, match. Victory!

I’ve met many leaders who feel guilty about their intellectual proclivities. They don’t want anybody knowing that they sneak peeks at the deep stuff once in a while. They feel “unleaderly” if they spend too much time in research and study. The truth of the matter is that if they don’t keep their minds challenged, they will probably dry up spiritually…

If you have an intellectual orientation… stop apologizing for it and start developing a spiritual formation plan that focuses on the development of your mind. Love God with all your mind and watch what happens to your daily union with him.

This is fairly close to describing me. I like heart-warming stories, but more so in testimonies than as sermon illustrations. I respond more to sermons that tell me something I haven’t heard before – something that makes me think about the passage in a new way. The two most interesting subjects I’ve done at Moore College so far were Old Testament Prophets and Biblical Theology, primarily because the lectures were intellectually stimulating and made me look at the Bible from a new perspective. I’d never thought about the structure of Isaiah – how the two middle sections are out of order chronologically, but fit together thematically, or how despite the possibility of more than one author, there’s a literary or thematic unity to the whole book. I’d never considered how the Creation account of Genesis and the New Creation account of Revelation ‘book-end’ the whole Bible, or how the prophets viewed the new creation in different ways depending on their situation – a pastoral image for Isaiah, a priestly perspective for Ezekiel, and a city for John. This kind of stuff fires up my mind, puts me on a high. I wish I could do more theological study, but I only seem to be able to manage two subjects a year.

I find this part of Hybel’s book encouraging, because it reassures me that the way I am is ‘ok’. I don’t have to feel spiritually refreshed by the same things that other people are. It’s ok to be an intellectual, as long as I don’t use that as an excuse to look down on other people. Now, all I need to do is work on the discipline…