Hey everyone! I have been away for a bit, dealing with an annoying leftover health issue and preparing for this upcoming season of Greenhouses at Soil & Roots, so apologies for the delay in my regular writing schedule. Let’s dive back in.
Here’s a quick review of our journey so far. Skip below if you are up to speed.
Authors Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich theorized that our spiritual journeys can be described in six stages (and I’m paraphrasing):
Awareness of God
Learning about Him
Living a Productive Christian Life
The Inward Journey
The Outward Journey
Living the Good Life.
However, they also note that most modern institutions are designed to only help and guide us through Stages 1-3. If we wish to become what we call “deep disciples” (stages 4-6), we may be on our own (institutionally speaking).
The organization Soil & Roots exists to help us explore these later stages of faith, primarily by guiding us through The Inward Journey, an intentional time of exploring our hidden, sometimes confusing parts, namely our ideas and desires.
As it turns out, the path towards experiencing the Good Life - the reality of living in and experiencing God’s delight, affection, two-way conversation, relational security, and safety - seemingly must pass through this time of uncovering and naming these ideas, and experiencing Jesus in the often-ignored parts of our hearts.
We spend much of our time here exploring ideas: assumptions, conclusions, and principles in which our hearts are rooted, but of which we are generally unaware. Ideas aren’t so much intellectual assertions as they are experienced realities. Our hearts are our roots, and the soil is the systems of ideas in which our hearts are planted (voila…Soil & Roots).
Ideas are one of the most powerful forces on the planet. In the Garden of Eden story, the snake didn’t tempt the woman with a blunt force intellectual argument. He invited her to accept and experience a new (corrupted) idea of God and herself.
According to theologian A.W. Tozer, one of the most important things about us, therefore, is our ideas of God. Again, I am not referring to our intellectual belief statements about Him. I am referring to our often-buried experiences and assumptions about Him. As I’ve noted before, I intellectually believe that God loves me unconditionally, yet I operate from the idea that I have to perform to earn and keep His favor.
We’ve briefly examined four common ideas of God that don’t actually align with who He is.
This is my last article on our exploration of ideas of God. We’ll move on to ideas of self next, but before we do, let’s explore why our ideas of God matter so much—to us, our families, our cultures, and even to God Himself.
Jesus’ desire and design for us is that we enjoy a new kind of life with Him right now. We refer to it as the Good Life, Stage 6, or the with-God Life.
We might also refer to it as eternal life, though in today’s parlance that term is often associated with something we experience only after we die. That is an incomplete and sometimes unhelpful definition.
Whatever term we choose, Jesus defines this life as a present, ongoing knowing. This kind of knowing extends far beyond intellectual acceptance. I know that two plus two equals four, but that is obviously not the kind of knowing Jesus describes. Biblical knowing refers to something much more intimate and intertwined, similar to the relationship between dear friends or loving spouses.
This kind of perpetual knowing involves experiencing one another’s delight, affection, deepest thoughts, emotions, and relational safety. Those are not words we often associate with our relationship with God, even though both of His books abound with invitations into such a life with Him.
Obviously, this kind of relationship involves far more than knowing facts about one another. It involves experiencing one another, over and again, in ever-deepening ways. It also requires something many of us struggle to muster: vulnerability.
This deep, abiding life can only be experienced through increasing levels of trust, and trust requires an ongoing commitment to vulnerability. It means coming into the relationship as we are rather than as we think we should be, or as someone else might want us to be. There is no intimacy without vulnerability, and vulnerability is nearly impossible without trust.
Perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves. Perhaps we should ask ourselves if we really want the Good Life. Do we really want to experience God as He is?
As David Benner notes
“While one might expect humans to receive the news that God is unequivocally for us as good news, in reality, we do not. We have such an inborn tendency to run our own lives and to pay our own way that unconditional love is both unbelievable and terrifying. In short, we want nothing of it.”
He goes on to say that the reason we want nothing of the Good Life is that the only way to get there is through a continual journey of surrender. Let’s face it, we aren’t the biggest fans of that.
Because our hearts are often damaged, wounded, and cautious, sometimes the last thing we desire is to reveal more and more of ourselves to Jesus or anyone else. We would rather manage the narrative and control the relationship. That feels safer.
That’s why we so often dance around the concept of the Good Life and accept a more shallow relationship with God. Truth be told, we like the comfort and safety of Stages 1,2, and 3, thank you very much.
Benner writes:
“Genuinely encountering Love is not the same thing as inviting Jesus into your heart, joining or attending a church, accepting the correct doctrines, or doing what Jesus commands. It is the experience of love that is transformational. We simply cannot bask in divine love and remain entirely unaffected.
Are we basking in divine love? Have we been so profoundly affected?
Perhaps Benner helps explain why becoming a deep disciple often involves more receiving than giving, more being than doing, and more resting than running. We aren’t merely attempting to accumulate more accurate information about Jesus. We are learning to surrender ourselves to Him.
So if we gently and compassionately evaluate our lives, only to discover that we aren’t living the Good Life—that we don’t live in a daily reality of God’s experiential love, delight, security, and presence—why might that be the case?
I submit that one primary reason is that we are operating from ideas of God that don’t reflect reality. Regardless of our theological acumen or adherence to doctrine, we may be functioning from powerful, unconscious assumptions about God that block us from experiencing the life Jesus offers.
Let me put it another way.
Let’s say we are introduced to someone who is highly regarded and accomplished. Yet during our conversation, we get the sense that the person is shifty, withholding, arrogant, or bossy. It may not be something they explicitly said. We might simply walk away with an uneasy sense that the person isn’t safe.
Would we pursue an ever-deepening relationship with that person based on a mutual commitment to vulnerability? Would we allow ourselves to experience them more fully, surrendering more and more of ourselves over time?
I highly doubt it. Chances are, we would steer clear and protect ourselves.
What if we sensed that the person wasn’t really in our corner? What if they seemed to look down on us? What if we suspected that they didn’t really like us, played favorites, or seemed constantly disappointed in us? Would we be inclined to give them more and more of ourselves?
Of course not. Why would we consistently surrender to someone who isn’t good, is partial, doesn’t like us, and is perpetually disappointed in us? Why would we want to experience someone like that?
Why would we want to experience a god like that?
Yet if we suffer from any of these common ideas of God, that is exactly the posture our hearts take. Yes, we may intellectually affirm that God is loving and good, but our ideas prevent us from experiencing the full depth of His love and goodness.
Our ideas of God do more than interfere with intimacy. They also shape the kinds of people we become. Yes, we long to become more like Jesus, but which one? The Jesus of our beliefs or of our ideas?
Someone who experiences God as controlling may become more controlling. Someone who experiences Him as partial will divide people into the favored and the not favored. Someone who assumes that God is perpetually disappointed may find themselves increasingly disappointed with themselves, their spouse, their children, their church, their coworkers, and the culture around them.
If we experience God as someone who keeps score, we will likely keep score. If we experience His love as conditional, we will offer love conditionally.
This is why our ideas of God matter far beyond what we call our spiritual lives. Ideas do not remain hidden in some private religious compartment. They spill into our emotions, behaviors, relationships, words, health, and the ways we use time and money. They also spill into culture.
Cultures of criticism, performance, tribalism, fear, and control do not appear out of nowhere. They are created by people whose hearts have been formed in criticism, performance, tribalism, fear, and control. What begins as an idea about God eventually becomes a way of relating to reality.
This is one reason I’m convinced that cultures do not primarily change because we pass better laws, elect better leaders, build better institutions, or yell more loudly at people on social media. Cultures change for the better when the people inside them become better people.
If we want cultures marked by generosity, patience, security, forgiveness, relational wisdom, and love, we must become those kinds of people. And if we want to become those kinds of people, our ideas of God matter immensely.
Perhaps we find ourselves ready to embrace God as He is, and the Good Life as it is offered to us. Perhaps we are ready for the Inward Journey, willing to uncover our hidden ideas about God, name them, and explore them with Jesus. Recognizing our hearts contain both helpful and hurtful ideas of Him, how do the corrupt ones change once they have been uncovered?
They do not usually change because we try harder to believe better things. Information and sound theology matter, but they rarely reach the deepest places on their own. Beliefs can be shaped through instruction, while ideas are generally formed and re-formed through relationship and experience.
The resolution, therefore, is not simply to memorize that God is good, that He likes us, that He is impartial, and that His settled posture toward us is delight. The invitation is to experience Him as good, delighted in us, impartial, and longing to be in our presence, and we in His.
As we are discussing in Season 7 of the podcast, the journey of idea re-formation is not really about completing a program, curriculum, or study. It’s inviting and allowing four circumstances to be present in our lives; circumstances that create the environment for idea re-formation. The four conditions are self-awareness, story-sharing, suffering in community, and spiritual practices.
They are not just four more religious activities to add to our already overcrowded lives. They are formative conditions in which our hidden ideas can gradually be uncovered, named, challenged, and re-formed with Jesus and some trusted friends.
As we gently become self-aware, we notice what is happening within us. Through story-sharing, we begin to understand where some of our ideas were formed. Through suffering in a trusted community, we experience the presence of Jesus and others in places where we once expected abandonment. Through spiritual practices, we become increasingly available to experience God beyond our mental agreements.
Jesus remains the primary actor. He meets us in the hidden places where our distorted ideas were formed and patiently reveals Himself as He truly is.
The greatest obstacle to becoming like Jesus may not be our lack of effort, but our mistaken ideas about the God we are trying to become like.
If the god we experience is unsafe, withholding, partial, distant, or disappointed, our reluctance to surrender makes perfect sense. Our hearts are attempting to protect us from someone they do not trust.
But God may be far better than the god we have imagined. His goodness may be more substantial than our suffering has allowed us to believe. He may not only love us but genuinely like us. He may not be playing favorites, and His settled posture toward us may be relational delight, even when He lovingly corrects us.
Perhaps the face waiting for us when we finally stop performing is not scowling, impatient, or cold. Perhaps it is the face of someone who has been patiently inviting us to come closer all along.
The Good Life begins as we increasingly surrender to the God who actually exists rather than the god our wounds, relationships, institutions, and cultures have taught us to expect.
That is why the Inward Journey matters. Our ideas of God shape whether we trust Him, whether we surrender to Him, and ultimately, the kinds of people we become.
The Inward Journey is not ultimately about just discovering who we are. It is about discovering who God actually is. As our ideas of Him become more aligned with reality, surrender slowly becomes less frightening, trust becomes more natural, and the Good Life begins to feel less like an impossible dream and more like the life Jesus has been inviting us into all along.
Duc In Altum
Brian
My new friend, Gary York, just released a brand new book that dovetails nicely with our recent exploration here. He was very kind to send me an advanced copy, which I reviewed, though the final version is now out and available to all of us!
While I tend to take a more philosophical and anthropological approach to our journey with Jesus (built, I hope, on sound theology), Gary digs into Scripture to help us mine what it promises about the intimacy God desires with each of us. You will be encouraged by his writings!
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