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Dear
Friends,
By now enough water has gone under the Christian
Spiritual Formation bridge that we can give some
assessment of where we have come and what yet
needs to be done. When I first began writing in
the field in the late 70s and early 80s the term
“Spiritual Formation” was hardly known, except
for highly specialized references in relation
to the Catholic orders. Today it is a rare person
who has not heard the term. Seminary courses in
Spiritual Formation proliferate like baby rabbits.
Huge numbers are seeking to become certified as
Spiritual Directors to answer the cry of multiplied
thousands for spiritual direction. And more.
Still,
any genuine understanding of Spiritual Formation
and its immense importance for the lives of individuals
and churches is as remote as ever. Many contemporary
books on the subject (and their number is now
legion) simply take up the all too familiar recipe
of consumer-Christianity-without-discipleship.
Seminary programs become quickly polluted by issues
that are a far cry from the spiritual growth of
students: money (D. Min. programs give seminaries
ready cash), pride (degrees abounding), arrogance
(our program is better than your program), ATS
accreditation concerns (reading lists and contact
hours take precedence over soul growth in grace),
and a host of other issues that have nothing to
do with the life of “righteousness and peace and
joy” in the Holy Spirit, and, indeed, are more
often than not counterproductive to it. But, all
this may be just as well, since Christian Spiritual
Formation is really hammered out in the harsh
realities of ordinary life—ear infections and
broken arms and bosses filled with guile and stock
market slumps and neighbors who deceive. Hence,
these are the very places where our hardest study
and most careful work in Spiritual Formation must
go on.
A
MOMENT OF GREAT OPPORTUNITY
You can probably detect that I am not overwhelmingly
encouraged by the popular expressions of Spiritual
Formation today. I’m not; too much is too faddish
and too formulaic for me to be optimistic. And
yet, we stand at a moment of great opportunity.
Human need today is so obvious and so great that
no honest person can deny it. People stagger under
the burden of human wickedness. Evil is an open,
oozing sore. Therefore superficial, half-answers
will not do. Not anymore. Today, there is a great
new fact in the contemporary interest in Spiritual
Formation. And I view it as a source for enormous
hope. This great new fact is the widespread belief
that we can no longer bypass authentic, pervasive,
thorough transformation of the inner life of the
human being.
Add
to this the fact that the many “spiritualities”
that have arisen in our day do not answer the
question of how we can become a good person. Nor
do they possess the power to make a person good.
But genuine Christian Spiritual Formation does
answer the question and does possess the power
to bring it to pass. And it is an answer and a
power that shines brightly throughout the pages
of history. It is no accident that the blazing
light and life of Christian faithfulness overcame
and supplanted all the “spiritualities” of Rome
in the early centuries of the Christian Era. They
offered a life—a formed, conformed, transformed
life—that the Roman spiritualities simply could
not match.
The
same can happen today. If . . . if we will: 1)
understand the absolute necessity of Spiritual
Formation (no more optional discipleship), 2)
make a firm intention to pursue it at all costs,
3) learn something of its means, and 4) faithfully
practice it in daily life. As we move forward
in Spiritual Formation, allow me to suggest several
essential areas of focus.
FOCUSING
ON JESUS
Nothing
is more important in Christian Spiritual Formation
than our need to continue ever focused upon Jesus.
This is not formation-in-general. This is formation
into Christlikeness. Everything hangs on this.
Everything. Jesus gives skeleton and sinews and
muscle to our formation. In Jesus we find definition
and shape and form for our formation. Jesus is
our Savior to redeem us, our Bishop to shepherd
us, our Teacher to instruct us, our Lord to rule
us, our Friend to come alongside us. He is alive.
He teaches, rules, guides, instructs, rebukes,
comforts. Stay close to him in all things and
in all ways.
Then
too, as Dallas Willard has taught us, we are constantly
learning to live our life as Jesus would live
our life if he were we. The point here is that
we are not trying to live his life but our life.
In the flesh Jesus’ life has already been lived.
It is our life that needs the living. Remember,
Jesus really is Lord; he is the Master of life,
all life. He can teach you and me how to live
our life. Really. You’re a computer programmer—he
can teach you how to do that well. Ask him. Then
listen . . . listen over a period of time. You’ll
learn how to do it as he would do it if he were
you. A teacher. Well, he is the Master teacher.
How about brick laying? Yes, that too.
Some
of the deepest teaching comes in the relationships
we must deal with day in and day out. How do we
relate to someone who deceives constantly? Jesus
knows. Ask and it will be given to you. How about
ego-driven colleagues? He understands them too.
Jesus is the Master of all human relationships.
He will guide you in what to say and what to do
and how to respond.
Now,
the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John are the touchstone of our understanding
of Jesus. These four Gospels in our Bible give
us everything needful and essential about Jesus.
They refuse, however, to indulge our curiosity
about a whole host of details. How long was Jesus’
hair? What color were his eyes? What toys did
he play with as a child? Did he play as a child?
And more.
Beginning
in the second century and continuing right up
to the present, various writers have rushed to
fill in the gaps with imaginative “lives of Jesus”.
Even today every now and then some publisher will
come out with a new book on “the lost life of
Jesus”. Please, don’t be taken in by such consumer
ploys. These flights of fantasy (if I may call
them that) do not lead us to the Jesus who is
the Way and the Truth and the Life; the Jesus
who reveals to us the heart of the Father. No,
these fictions reveal not Jesus but the agenda
and the biases of the writer. They are a waste
of good time and energy. Worse, they so titillate
our fantasies that they distract the imagination
from its proper function, which is, as Mary, to
prayerfully ponder all the realities of Jesus
in our heart (Luke 2:19). This prayerful pondering,
this sanctified imagination, continually confronts
us with the realities of ethical decision and
moral choice. Always it drives us to turn from
our way into God’s way. Always it brings us face-to-face
with the reality of Jesus and calls us increasingly
to take on his character, his thoughts, his habits,
his passion, his compassion.
FOCUSING
ON SCRIPTURE
My mention of the Gospel record leads me to a
second essential area of focus for Spiritual Formation:
Scripture. Oh, I hope you can feel deep down in
your bones the great goodness and wonder of the
Bible. God, in sovereign grace and outrageous
love, has given us a written revelation of his
own being and nature and of his purposes for humanity.
That written revelation now resides as a massive
fact at the heart of human history. There is,
simply, no book that is remotely close to achieving
the presence and influence of the Bible. It is
truly The Book (hay Biblos).
But
the intrinsic power and greatness of the Bible
does not make it easy for us to receive the life
it offers. In fact, we can often use the Bible
in ways that stifle the spiritual life and even
destroy the soul. This happened to any number
of people who walked in the literal presence of
Jesus, and it still happens today. Even to those
who speak most highly of the Bible.
Sometimes
we study the Bible for information alone in order
to prove that we are right and others are wrong
in particular doctrines or beliefs or practices.
At other times we study the Bible to find some
formula to solve the pressing need of the moment.
But both approaches to the Bible leave the soul
untouched. No, we need to study the Bible with
a view to the transformation of our whole person
and of our whole life into Christlikeness. We
come to the Bible to receive the life “with God”
that is portrayed in the Bible. To do this we
must not control what comes out of the Bible.
We must be prepared to have our dearest and most
fundamental assumptions about ourselves and our
associations called into question. We must read
humbly and in a constant attitude of repentance.
Only in this way can we gain a thorough and practical
grasp of the spiritual riches that God has made
available to all humanity in his written Word.
We
can begin with the Gospels looking at the
“with-God” life that is fully portrayed in Jesus.
And we seek this life abundant that comes in and
through Jesus alone. We study the Epistles
to see the life of God being poured through his
people, the Church. And we seek that life for
ourselves and for our families and for our churches
and for our times. We study the Psalms
and see the people of God at prayer. And we too
enter a living experience of prayer, working in
co-operation with God to see his kingdom come
and his will be done here on earth. We study the
Pentateuch to understand the Mosaic Law
in the light of grace. And we seek to conform
our lives to the heart and spirit of the Law.
We study the Historical books to understand
how God works through the historical particularities
of a people. And we ask for God’s life and God’s
work in the specifics of our histories. We study
the Prophets and see their bias in favor
of the downtrodden. And we seek the power to live
continually with a sensitized social conscience.
We study the Wisdom books and discover
God’s interest in the practical details of everyday
life. And we pray for wisdom in the minutiae of
our little life. We study the Eschatological
books and discover that “He’s got the whole
world in his hands”. And we place our little destiny
in God’s hands too. And more.
Throughout
our study of the Bible we are learning greater
love: greater appropriation of God’s love for
us, and for us to have greater love for God, for
others, and for ourselves. All our study of the
Bible is so that we might love more and know more
of love. Not as an abstraction but as a practical
reality by which we are possessed. And since all
who love through and through “naturally” (supernaturally,
too) obey the Law, we will be ever more obedient
to Jesus Christ and his Abba Father. We surrender
freely to the life we find in the Bible, trusting
the living water that flows from Jesus through
the Bible, and living in the reality of its abundance.
FOCUSING
ON SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES
The
life we find in the Bible is meant for us. Jesus’
declaration, “I am come that they might have life,
and that they might have it more abundantly” is
intended for you and for me (John 10:10). It is
a life of unhurried peace and power. It is solid.
It is simple. It is serene. It is radiant. But,
it is not automatic.
There
is a process, a God-ordained means, to becoming
the kind of persons and the kind of communities
that can fully and joyfully enter into such abundant
living. This is the reason for the Disciplines
of the spiritual life. They constitute the way
God has given us for intentionally “training ourselves
in godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7). This is why the Spiritual
Disciplines is the third essential focus of Spiritual
Formation.
Frankly,
no Spiritual Disciplines, no Spiritual Formation.
The Disciplines are the God-ordained means by
which each of us is enabled to bring the little,
individualized power pack we all possess—we call
it the human body—and place it before God as “a
living sacrifice” (Rom. 12:1). It is the way we
go about training in the spiritual life. By means
of this process we become, through time and experience,
the kind of person who lives naturally and freely
in “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal.
5:22-23).
What
are these Spiritual Disciplines I am speaking
of? Oh, they are many and varied: fasting and
prayer, study and service, submission and solitude,
confession and worship, meditation and silence,
simplicity, frugality, secrecy, sacrifice, celebration,
and the like. The commonly identified public religious
activities are important to be sure, but the less
commonly practiced activities like solitude and
silence and meditation and fasting and submission
to the will of others as appropriate are in fact
more foundational for Spiritual Formation. All
Disciplines should be thoughtfully and resolutely
approached for the purpose of forming the life
into Christlikeness, or they will have little
or no effect in promoting this life.
It
is vitally important for us to see all this spiritual
training in the context of the work and action
of God’s grace. As the great Apostle reminds us,
“it is God who is at work in you, enabling you
both to will and to work for his good pleasure”
(Phil. 2:13). You see, we are not just saved by
grace, we live by grace. And we pray by grace
and fast by grace and study by grace and serve
by grace and worship by grace. All the Disciplines
are penetrated throughout by the enabling grace
of God.
The
training of the Spiritual Disciplines must always
be seen in the context of an intimate, personal
walk with Jesus himself. We are not looking for
some exhaustive list of the Disciplines so that
we can cross every “t” and dot every “i”. Nor
are we looking for any “formula for blessedness”.
No, no, this is a dynamic, interactive life “with
God”. In practicing the Spiritual Disciplines
we are simply learning to fall in love with Jesus
over and over and over again.
BACK
TO THE BEGINNING
And
that takes us back to where we started, doesn’t
it! We start with Jesus and we end with Jesus.
As the Cotton Patch paraphrase of the Gospels
puts it, “Jesus is tops over all!” Jesus is indeed
our everliving Savior, Teacher, Lord, and Friend.
He will guide and direct. All we need do is listen.
And obey.
Peace
and joy,
Richard J. Foster
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