When I was a kid, I was a full-on head-to-toe tomboy who loved baseball. I mean, I liked Barbies too, but I loved baseball.
I grew up in Cleveland and, every evening in the summer, my family would watch the local broadcast of our major league team. But I didn’t just watch. I’d stand in an open area of our downstairs family room with a bat to pretend I was the one in the batter’s box, swinging at the strikes and trying to lay off the balls.
Even more, because I loved baseball, I often spent my allowance on baseball cards. I collected full sets and traded cards with the two boys who lived next door. I asked my mom to take me to baseball card shows so I could look for the cards I was missing. See, I told you. Full-on tomboy.
When you love something, no one has to tell you to engage in activities that cultivate your passion. My mom never had to say, “Make sure you watch the game tonight” or “Don’t forget to buy yourself another pack of baseball cards.” I loved baseball, and so I was naturally drawn to those activities.
So, let me ask you: Do you love God? If so, what activities – or maybe better put – what spiritual practices do you love engaging in to cultivate your passion for him?
I don’t know what your reaction is when someone starts talking about spiritual practices – or as they have often been called, spiritual disciplines – but I know many people instantly feel a load of “shoulds.”
- I should pray more.
- I should spend more time in God’s Word.
- I should keep a Sabbath.
- I should spend more time in solitude.
- I should fast… ok, well, maybe not that last one. Fasting seems like the extra credit of spiritual practices that you only have to do if you want to get into the exclusive parts of heaven (of course, I’m kidding).
A lot of us feel a load of “shoulds” when we think about spiritual practices. But I never felt like watching a baseball game was a “should.”
Here’s the thing: I think you really do love God. Maybe that love has gotten buried under the weight of the responsibilities you carry, the ministry activities you have to run, the people who are constantly vying for your attention. But deep down, in your heart of hearts, you love God. I know you do.
So, when it comes to spiritual practices, ask yourself not what you should do, but rather: What practices cultivate my experience of intimacy with God? Because here’s the reality: Any practice that does this is a spiritual practice.
I remember hearing teaching pastor Nancy Ortberg tell a story about the season of her life when she was raising two preschool-aged children. She felt like every day of her life was consumed with caring for their needs and refereeing between them. And, she started to feel guilty that her “quiet time,” what in her mind meant sitting down for a significant time of Bible study and prayer, kept getting pushed to the side.
But she said that one day as she was sitting on a bench at a playground watching her children play, she was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for her kids and other blessings that God had brought into her life. She was overwhelmed with God’s presence and entered into the most meaningful time of worship she had experienced in months. And then a question came to her: Does this count as a quiet time? And the answer is, of course, it counts! Sitting on a park bench spending time expressing gratitude to God while you watch your children play counts! Any practice that cultivates your experience of intimacy with God is a spiritual practice.
I have found that I experience a sense of God’s presence anytime I can sit and stare at a body of water, which bodes well for me living in the middle of Illinois. But, it’s true! Even if I just go to the nearby Arboretum and sit in the shade of the trees and stare at a pond, I somehow find my heart and mind settling, and I experience a sense of peace as I simply sit in the presence of God.
It reminds me of the famous line from the Scottish Olympic sprinter Eric Liddle whose life was portrayed in the movie Chariots of Fire. He said, “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.”
Eric runs. I like to sit. But the point is: What practices cultivate your experience of intimacy with God? What helps you be attuned to his nearness? What practices fill you with a sense of his peace and his pleasure? Are you practicing those things?
Jesus engaged in spiritual practices.
He had a regular practice of spending time with his Father in prayer. Mark tells us, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35). At least 25 times in the Gospels, we read of Jesus praying.
As he prepared for a significant season of ministry, Jesus engaged in the spiritual practice of fasting. Matthew tells us, “After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry” (Matthew 4:2), which I also find to be one of the most obvious and understated statements in Scripture.
Luke tells us that “…on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read…” (Luke 4:16). Jesus had a regular spiritual practice of meeting with others to engage with Scripture.
No doubt, Jesus engaged regularly in the practice of serving others. He told his disciples, “I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27).
John tells us that Jesus: “…withdrew again to a mountain by himself” (John 6:15), and Luke adds that this spiritual practice of solitude and silence was something Jesus did often (Luke 5:16).
Jesus engaged in spiritual practices. And I’ve found many of his practices to be beneficial in my own life. Although, I’ll admit, that fasting one is still a struggle.
But let’s make sure we’re clear. The goal of these practices is not the practices themselves. The goal of the practices for Jesus was intimacy with his Father. These practices provided an avenue for him to step back from all the hustle and bustle of ministry life to cultivate his relationship with the One who had sent him to do the work he was doing.
This is what the practices are meant to be for us. Opportunities to cultivate our love for and with God. They are avenues for us to experience intimacy with him.
So, let me ask you to ask yourself again: What practices cultivate my experience of intimacy with God?
Now, these practices can feel like “disciplines” because we do have to step off the treadmill of endless activity and production to enter into them. And if you are anything like me, you might experience resistance to that at times. For me, this is especially true when I’m tired or anxious.
For example, as an Enneagram 5 who loves to engage in reflection, one of my primary answers to this question for myself is journaling. There is something about journaling, writing out my prayers to God, that centers my mind, my heart, and my soul. Journaling helps me connect with God in a way I don’t really experience in any other way.
But here is a common scenario in my life: If I’ve had a day that has been filled with frustrations and anxiety-producing situations, usually the last thing I feel like doing is journaling. What I want to do is Netflix. But what I’ve learned through lots of trial and many errors is that if I will take 15 or 30 minutes to sit down and process my day with God through writing, I will end the day and enter into sleep with a level of connection, comfort, and peace that I just can’t find watching reruns of Seinfeld.
Once I engage with God through this spiritual practice, I know there is no place better to be.
My challenge to you is to identify the practice or practices that cultivate your own experience of intimacy with God in this current season of your life with your current circumstances – both the opportunities and limitations that those circumstances pose – and then ruthlessly protect those spiritual practices in your schedule.
This is essential to your connection with God, essential to cultivating your love for and intimacy with him. But there is another reason.
It is also essential to your ministry with people.
After serving in various ministry roles for 30 years (let’s pretend I started when I was 10), I am fully convinced of this: The greatest thing you can give to the people you lead is a heart that is intimately connected to God. This is so important, I want you to read it again: The greatest thing you can give to the people you lead is a heart that is intimately connected to God.
And why? Because then it isn’t just you they are getting, but the power and presence of God working in and through you.
When asked about the work he was doing, “Jesus gave them this answer: ‘Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does’” (John 5:19).
“By myself I can do nothing…” (John 5:30) Jesus said.
If Jesus didn’t do ministry in his own power, why do we think we can?
There is something God does in us as we connect with him through spiritual practices that equips us for the work he has called us to. I’m not saying the practices are magical, but I think they are mystical. When we engage with God through spiritual practices, we give the Spirit the opportunity to do the transforming work in our lives that God wants to do. We give the Spirit the opportunity to equip us.
We give the Spirit the opportunity to pour God’s love into our hearts so that we are equipped to love the people he’s entrusted to our care (Romans 5:5).
Now, I don’t have any scientific proof to prove this nor a Bible verse to definitively back it up, but I do have a hunch. I think that intimacy with God is what makes the difference between simply being gifted to do the work of ministry and being anointed. We all experience this, don’t we?
It’s the difference between the preacher who does a great job delivering a talk and one who leads us to hear the voice of God in our own lives as she does so.
It’s the difference between a worship leader doing a great job leading us in singing and one who leads us into the throne room of God.
It’s the difference between a shepherd who does a great job showing up for her people and one who seems to leave us with a sense of being cared for by Jesus himself.
We can’t explain it, but we know when we have been led by someone who has lingered in the presence of God.
And that’s why I believe the greatest thing you can give to the people you lead is a heart that is intimately connected to God. Because then you’re not just giving them yourself with all your amazing talents and gifts. You are being a conduit for them to experience the power and presence of God.
So, let me ask you to ask yourself one more time: What practices cultivate my experience of intimacy with God?
Figure that out, and then ruthlessly protect those practices.
Here’s the truth about my childhood affair with baseball: Eventually, basketball came along, and I forsake my first love. As I grew into my teens, I left baseball cards behind. Now I wanted to watch the Cleveland Cavaliers and practice free throws in the backyard.
And maybe leaving baseball for basketball wasn’t such a big deal. But there is a danger in ministry. I know you love God, but influence, opportunities, and the desire for success will come along. We can easily fill up our calendars with all kinds of meetings and open doors to serve. We can stand on stages and believe people when they tell us how wonderful we are. And in the process, we can lose our first love.
Jesus said to the church at Ephesus, “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first” (Revelation 2:4).
If you find yourself in that place, a commitment to spiritual practices, to the pursuit of connection with God, can help you find your way back.
Spiritual practices provide an avenue for us to step back from all the hustle and bustle of ministry life to cultivate intimacy with the one who has sent us to do the work he has called us to do.
So, let’s make the practices a priority in our lives, not because we should, but because, as the famous passage from St. Augustine’s Confessions says, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
