The way of love - Part V: You've read this before...

I’ve long suspected (and preached) that the evidence of spiritual fruit in a life lies in the pursuit of something higher than the fruit itself. I've been pointed again and again to the spiritual disciplines – not as legalistic ways to live my life, but as ways to increase my sensitivity to the Spirit and natural ability to be intimate with my Creator. Love, in the Christian context, should be a natural outflowing of that intimacy and the resultant deepening understanding of who God is.

Well, maybe I just don’t “want it” bad enough, because there are still plenty of distractions in my life that I give my attention to over the pursuit of spiritual formation. So now I’m pounding on the door of heaven, asking God to give me this desire above all else, because I am convinced that life is meaningless without the love that flows consequentially from a gut-level, honest understanding of my relationship to Him. And yet I remain frustrated by my own level of spiritual apathy.

I was “raised in the church,” so I don’t have the same context for God as someone who encountered Him somewhere along the way, and therefore has a distinct “before” and “after” by which to measure the reality of what God has done in their life. I therefore have difficulty comprehending the realness of God well enough to be able to honestly claim that I have a love for Him which supersedes all else. He’s so beyond my own understanding… so “out there” and intangible that it’s hard for me to associate any real passion with the pursuit of Him.

(Incidentally, this principle is at the heart of my often reserved or even cynical nature when it comes to corporate expressions of worship. My own inability to truly understand and identify the greatness of God conspires to make me feel rather inauthentic when I publicly express my wonder and admiration for it… and I’m often given instead to wondering whether or not anyone really identifies with what they’re expressing. Perhaps I’ll blog further on this subject line some day under the title “The emperor isn’t wearing any clothes!”)

So where do I go now? I’ve come full-circle, back to the realization that I don’t evidence Christ-like love in my life as a general rule, which seems to follow from the fact that I don’t love God with the fullness that I desire (or He desires, for that matter), which seems to follow from my general lack of intimacy with, and hopefully commensurate understanding of Him.

I just hope this growing dissatisfaction actually leads somewhere.

[to be concluded]