From previous post…..”What if there are two aspects to healthy spiritual growth, like there are two rings of growth in a tree? There is growth that comes out of abundant spiritual experience, but there is also growth that comes out of a withdrawing of that experience. And what if the healthy spiritual life consists of both?”

If that is true, I think the church at large has difficulty embracing both of these aspects of spiritual growth. There is the camp that focuses almost exclusively on spiritual experience as the key to spiritual growth. All of the testimonies are about this growth, and there is a constant encouragement to seek more spiritual experience. Generally, church gatherings seek to give people an experience of God. A lack of spiritual experience, or a dry season, is understood to reflect that something is not right in a person’s life. Once that is corrected, the spiritual experience will begin to flow again. “If you feel far away from God, guess who moved.” Churches that focus heavily on seeking revival, performing signs and wonders, and dramatic testimonies of God’s power would be in this camp.

Then there is the camp that will emphasize that Christian faith is about truth and not feelings. The important thing is to believe the right things, not have certain experiences. Church gatherings seek to impart truth about God. People in this camp tend to be suspicious of spiritual experience, viewing it as either mere emotionalism or dangerous for leading people from the truth. Churches that focus heavily on doctrine, Bible exposition, and ritual would be in this camp.

We could view these camps as representing wide ring and narrow ring tree growth. And there is a problem that they are not able to appreciate the value of each other. One reason for this is that we are far more comfortable with one or the other of these being valid, but not both. If direct experience of God is available and can be a part of our lives, we want to be able to have that all the time. We want there to be something that is in our control to get that experience. If we are unable to figure out how to do that, we would rather not have it at all.

Consider someone who desires a miraculous healing of an ailment. They want to believe that they will be healed and are attracted to a teaching that gives that promise if they pursue it correctly. But eventually, if they are unable to experience healing, it is hard for them to accept that God does heal people in that way. Seeing and believing that others are healed, and that this healing is available, can make their lack of healing even more painful, even more of a sense of being neglected by God.

And the two camps do not appreciate one another because of their exclusive focus on one type of growth. The wider ring camp rejects the narrow ring camp because they really value their experiences of God. A Christian life that is primarily about what you believe and how you think is not appealing to them. They want a church that does help them to experience God.

The narrow ring camp rejects the wider ring camp because they have concluded that the promise of a constant experience of God is not real, at least not for them. And they easily detect the inconsistencies and problems with that perspective. Also, the pursuit of experience fueled by the wider ring camp may have only led to disappointment, so they are reluctant to pursue or desire spiritual experience at all.

The challenge is to embrace both types of growth. The application of this to faith and work could be about what working with and for God should be like. Does it mean operating with spiritual insight and power to transform the world through your work? Or is God not in the business of accomplishing such results and working with and for God is more about attitudes, being a good person, and not about what you are accomplishing with your work. I think that a truly godly work life is going to consist of both. Two rings of work that is pleasing to God.

I would love to connect with you about these posts if they have stirred any thoughts or questions. Take a minute, shoot me an email at bo@leavenedlives.org, and let’s see where that takes us.