The Day That Changed My Life (Because Nothing Special Happened)
The man who first discipled me was the late Jim Feiker. He was one of the pastors at the church my wife and I attended when we were first married. Jim and I spent hours together, praying, reading Scripture and speaking together about what God might want to do with my life.
One of the things that Jim often talked about was “taking a day alone with God.” Of course I was familiar with the valuable spiritual discipline of daily quiet time with God, but I had never heard of taking an entire day alone with God.
It was a habit for Jim to spend a day alone with God once a month. He would go off to be by himself, armed with nothing more than his Bible, his journal, and maybe one other book. He would fast that day and devote the entire time to thinking, praying, reading Scripture, being alone with God.
After hearing Jim talk about a “day alone with God” so often, I decided to try it, to see what it would be like to spend an entire day seeking God, with nothing else on the agenda.
My expectations were high. I thought, of course, that hours alone with God would surely turbocharge my spiritual life.
New spiritual zeal!
Now holy boldness!
A fresh sense of God’s Presence!
You get the idea. I expected that I would come out on the other end of that experience a new and different man.
I set aside the day and spent it at a local park reserve, where I knew I would be alone. I walked, I prayed, I read Scripture. And I fasted.
Results?
I would love to report to you that my expectations were more than fulfilled, that if you set aside a day to be alone with God you can expect that day to change your life, that you’ll never be the same again.
What happened to me that day? I got hungry.
Other than an increased awareness of my need for physical nourishment, there were no remarkable changes in my outlook or, for that matter, in my inner life.
At the end of that day I was pretty much the same man as I was at the beginning.
But as I reflected later on that unexpected non-result, I realized something: God had been changing my life. But He hadn’t chosen to use dramatic events to effect the changes I had seen over time.
Instead, I realized that God had used dozens of small events over time to slowly change me from the inside out.
And that was the day that changed my life because nothing happened that day.
That was the day my expectations shifted. I began to see the importance of routine habits in my spiritual formation.
Spiritual habits are an underappreciated factor in our spiritual formation. As I looked over some of the posts we’ve written on this blog, I noticed that we have written a great deal about the role that habits play our spiritual formation:
It does seem odd to me that we think about spiritual nourishment so differently from the way we think about physical nourishment. Our expectations of eating food, which we do several times a day, are so different from our expectations of taking in spiritual nourishment.
Why do we eat food? As is always the case with everything we do, our motives are multifold:
We eat as a part of social settings (everything from family dinner to eating out with friends to a wedding reception).
We eat because our bodies crave nourishment: usually we’re hungry, and sometimes we eat even when we’re not hungry because we know how our bodies will react if we don’t eat.
We eat out of habit.
But we would never think of our physical nourishment the way we sometimes think about our spiritual nourishment:
“I know it’s been a few days since I’ve eaten, but I’ve been so busy.”
“I’m just not that motivated to eat. I didn’t get that much out of my last meal.”
“Yes, I know I should eat more often; I feel bad about the way I neglect eating food.”
I think there are a couple of mistakes we can easily make with regards to our spiritual formation:
It’s easy to cultivate an expectation that we will grow spiritually only in mountain-top experiences.
This was the mistake I made when I approached my day alone with God. It is the same mistake we made when were kids and went to church camp or when we go on a mission trip and come back on a short-lived spiritual high. We fail to realize that the things that shape our spiritual life are the habits of our day, the rhythms of our week.
There is no startling insight here. It seems pedantic to say it because it’s so obvious, but the habits that will build our trust in God and deepen our relationship with Him are the ones we’ve known about all our lives: listening to God in His Word, speaking to Him in prayer, gathering with the people of God to celebrate the goodness of God, serving one another, sharing the Good News about Jesus with our friends who are far from God.
It’s easy to underestimate the power of social media in our spiritual formation.
It is no exaggeration to say that many people are being discipled by social media. Their outlook is shaped more by Facebook than by Scripture. The solution is not a legalistic insistence that we spend an hour in Bible-reading for every hour we spend on Facebook.
But it is a simple fact that we cannot invest hours each week in Facebook debates and relegate Bible engagement to Sunday morning and expect to enjoy a vibrant and growing life with God.
The question of how we manage the balance of time alone with God in His Word v. time in social media is a matter that each of us must work out on our own, but we must not fool ourselves: we are shaped by the sources that command our attention.
So where do I begin if I’ve never established spiritual habits? I have often said that the first step in any spiritual endeavor is to “start from where you are, not where you’re supposed to be.”
If I want to establish spiritual habits, I must begin by carving out the time in my daily and weekly schedule. It’s easy to lie to ourselves about this and tell ourselves that once the schedule settles down we’ll be able to devote time to spiritual habits. I say this is self- deception because we all know what happens when the schedule pressures relent. We know how “nature abhors a vacuum,” and many other things rush in to occupy our time. It is said that Suzanna Wesley (mother of not only the famous Charles and John but also of seventeen other children) resorted to pulling her apron over her head to find time alone with God. If we are not setting aside time to be alone with God, we might need to be honest with ourselves and admit that it is not yet a priority for us.
Keep it simple. And private. Don’t create an elaborate ritual that will take on a life of its own. Your objective is not the activity; it is the Person you are meeting. Sure, there are people who have been meeting with God for years who have developed their own patterns, but if you are just starting out, keep it simple. You and your Bible and maybe a journal to capture your thoughts and prayers. My pattern right now is to copy the Scripture onto the left-hand page of a composition book (usually 5-7 verses) and journal about that passage on the right hand page. It’s slow going, but what’s the hurry?
Don’t berate yourself. If you miss a day or several days, don’t beat yourself up. A friend recently reminded me of how God sees our trying and failing; He sees our up-and-down efforts the same way parents see the efforts of their little ones learning to walk. We don’t scold our toddlers for falling; we cheer them for trying. If you miss a few days or even many days, come back the next day to meet with God. He’ll be glad to see you.
As for my day alone with God, I haven’t taken one for years now. I think it’s time to set aside a day to catch my breath and spend some time with God. Not because it will change my life; I know better now. But because I need some time to decompress in His Presence and just listen to Him and talk to Him without hurry.
Persevere in obedient trust and trusting obedience.
Persevere.
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor
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