Time with God - A Growing Concern

There are more than 100 blogs in my RSS feed. They run the gamut from theological to family update oriented. Some are political, some are religious, some are for fun, and some revolve around some pretty serious issues for our world. In each of the blogging genres that I follow (except the family and friend general updates), I have selected some to follow that usually flow with my own beliefs, some that are at the opposite end of the spectrum, and others that fall at varying places along the spectrum. This creates a really interesting tapestry in which to explore, question, debate, and discuss my own understandings and beliefs. This also helps me to recognize patterns within my own perspectives and the perspectives of others.

In the realm of Christian faith within the blogosphere, I am beginning to notice a pattern that is disturbing to me. Many of our theological reflectors, our seminarians, church planters, church leaders, and lay people keep bringing up the same issue on their blogs regarding spending time with God. These folks often say that as ministry, school, and life demands increase, personal time with God (in prayer, studying the Bible, worshiping, etc) dramatically decreases. As a solution to this problem, we are encouraged to get back to spending more time with God (specifically in the aforementioned ways).

At the outer level, there is nothing seemingly wrong with spending more time in prayer, Bible study, worship, etc. These things are definitively a part of our journey as Christians...they can feed and nurture our relationships with God and with others...but they are not the only "parts" of our journey. This is where the disturbing part comes in...it seems to me that many are describing spending time in two distinct ways.

Let me back up just a moment and say that my understanding of the Christian faith revolves around relationships. What Christ has done through his life, death, and resurrection was to reconcile the relationship between humanity and God. You want to know about community, look at God. You want to be in relationship with others and the world around you, turn to God. After all, isn't it Scripture that reminds us that we are to love God and love our neighbors as we love ourselves...it is about relationships.

So (returning to our previous discussion) to delineate spiritual disciplines (under the guise of 'spending more time with God') as partial requirements of the Christian faith seems to do two things(in their most extreme presentations):

First, it seems to create a false compartmentalization between faith and the rest of our lives. For example, time with God can certainly mean time in prayer and time in the study of Scripture, but is time with God's children, in service, or with family any less time with God? With such effort in the world to compartmentalize our lives (our work lives, our home lives, our school lives, our family lives, our spiritual lives, etc) it appears to me that the Gospel speaks of a faith in God/a relationship with God that permeates the entirety of our lives. As such, faith isn't a single part of our lives, but rather is something that permeates the entirety of our lives. By keeping (or attempting to keep) God at bay in any area of our lives is merely to reify the compartments that are familiar to and comfortable for us.

The second extreme often presented is the use of spending time with God (referencing again the aforementioned spiritual disciplines) as rules for being Christian. Sadly, things like studying the Scriptures, worship, and prayer are relegated to requirements of what it truly means to be Christian...if you don't do them, in a particular way and with a particular frequency; then maybe you aren't particularly Christian. Isn't this part of the problem when Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment (almost as if those asking might be saying if we can't keep all of them, which one or ones should we pay particularly close attention to)? Didn't a segment of humanity take 10 simple rules and create more than 600 rules (like not wearing shoes heavier than a certain weight on the Sabbath because that might be considered work)...did not Jesus' response to the aforementioned question simplify things for us? In this perspective, we have to be very careful in discerning how the disciplines fall into Christ's discourse on the greatest commandments.

At these extremes, it seems to me that the gospel is distorted. As disciplines, yes they (the ways of spending time with God) can be means of grace that draw us closer to God and to each other. But if the transformation that is occurring in and through us in our study, worship, prayer times, etc is not reflected in our everyday walking around, breathing, eating, waking lives; then is it really transformation? We can't be truly altered/changed/transformed in our faith without there being fruit in the rest of our lives...our faith cannot be relegated to a compartment that only takes up part of our day or part of our week...and to present it as such, does nothing to speak to the truth of the wholeness and fullness of salvation that the gospel proclaims. At the other end of the spectrum, we have never been good at following rules. If my prayer, worship and study don't look like someone else's, it doesn't mean that it is not authentic or less fruitful. To say that spending time with God must look a particular way (frequency, presentation, etc) seems to squelch what the Spirit may be doing in a group of people or an individual. When we broach this extreme, we essentially set up a new law that becomes impossible to fulfill.

In the end, it seems to me that it is the work of the Holy Spirit, in and through us, that draws us closer to God and to one another. It is the overflow of love from God that drives us to know more about that love and pursue growth in that relationship. It is an ongoing desire to know God more that calls us to prayer, worship, study, etc. And it is in these places in more, that God continues the work he began in us. As we learn to love God more (out of the loving relationship that God has for us) we learn to love others. In our loving others we can still be present with God even in service to those others. In the end, it returns to our relationship with God and with each other. Our very lives, not just the faith parts, are radically altered by the saving and sanctifying grace of God.

I hope that my thoughts on this are clear, but if you want to do more reading on the subject, one of the resources that has had the most significant impact on my life regarding the disciplines and spending time with God is the work of Richard Foster entitled "Celebration of Discipline."

Am I the only one that has noticed this? What do you think about compartmentalizing God or turning the disciplines into rules? What resources have helped you come to an understanding about these things?