Going Deeper with God, Lesson 3

If we want God to do more, then we have to be more, that is, to become more “in Christ.” The real question is, do we want more? Do we really? As Christians, it is easy to slip into becoming complacent, comfortable, and not worried. We’re not in the fray, speaking life to people, and there may be a few problematic areas in our lives that need some attention. We are busy with other things and are not paying too close of attention to the eternal soul within our self. Basically, we may be inactive or lack depth in the spirit realm.

What’s missing is the life, power, and joy.

Question 5: Where is the power in our spiritual walk? Where is its life? Most importantly, why is it missing?

Answer the question before going on with the lesson.

Although we may be living with our stuff and our pain, we are, for the most part, fairly content with the way things are humming along. We are doing our best effort for the most part, and some of us may even be giving it our all. No matter, all of us need to ask ourselves the hard questions i.e. is there a root of bitterness in us? Is there anger towards others? Is there disappointment with God? Is there a lack of life and suffused energy?

These are very human conditions that we often experience as part of life, and they are to be expected. But what are we doing with them? Are we bringing them to the Father, or are we harboring them and vindicating ourselves. We should frequently check what’s going on inside of us. We may be stuck in a spiritual rut and not even realize it.

If we are honest with ourselves, sometimes we feel alone and live with a sense of feeling abandoned by God. We may be disillusioned and feel second-rate in our relationship with Him. What about that empty, going-through-the-motions feeling, that reeks of deadness and staleness? What about our own issues, the ones that we’re afraid to look at too closely? Something is going on, we know, when we see there is complacency in us or a conflicted awareness of separation, not unity, in the connection between our emotions and thinking.

These are practical reasons, of course, but there are spiritual reasons as well. Part of living as a human being is an embedded capacity for spiritual living—with its struggle with the world, the flesh, the devil, and spiritual warfare—which is in battle against those things that resist a meaningful closeness with God.

But that is only half other problem, there is an additional area of major deficit in our spiritual lives, separate from previously mentioned areas of difficulty (which are very real, indeed, I don’t discount them). What is missing in the full picture and within the weakness causing lack in our Christian lives is maximum engagement with God in the center of self, in what some of the old writings call the “Ministry of the Interior.”

Something has come up missing. We find this situation when the deep well within a person is dry (empty) or nearly dry (losing its energy), when it needs to be filled with more of God, God’s loving presence,  God’s blessed enabling, and God’s loving grace. When our spiritual well is depleted, the living water flows less freely and our Love-tank, full of God’s mercy, is accessed less and less.

Our Christian life begins to sour and it becomes robotic, life-less ( or its opposite, lazy and worldly), and sometimes it morphs into a form of spiritual make-believe, a facade that is self-righteous and rigid rather than life-giving and alive. The saddest part is this, the person’s soul has lost its love, hope, and power, and it has “settled” for far less than God, our Father, intended it to become.

Question 6: What do you think “doing” vs. “being” looks like?

Answer the question before going to the next post.

Next post: We Need to Walk Closely with Our Lord (Going Deeper with God, Part 4)