My footsteps squished into the pine needles covering the cold, rain-soaked ground. I should be making footprints in the snow, God. Why didn’t you give us snow? We hadn’t visited family during Christmas for seven years, and now, home with my kids who knew nothing colder than a chilly-ish day in Thailand, I felt cheated.
Something in me recoiled at my own entitled attitude, yet I felt the Father’s invitation. “Go on,” He seemed to say. “Tell me all about it.” So I did. I walked through the woods on that drizzly Christmas Day, following deer trails with my feet and my own sense of disappointment in my heart.
It wasn’t long, however, before my grumblings turned into wonder at the little red berries beside my path and the signs of hidden wildlife—a squirrel chattering in the distance, deer droppings to step around, a broken branch with star-like seed pods discarded by a creature passing by.
And wonder, as you know, quickly gives way to praise. My perspective soon shifted, and I could see the gifts God was providing in this not-yet-frozen woodland for both His animals and for me. I could find the Father’s comfort, and I settled into His peace.
But sometimes I question my heart. Do I follow Him because of how He makes me feel? Or do I follow Him, trust Him, and praise Him even when I don’t experience His presence? Even when the way is dark?
“If you follow God only to feel His presence and comfort, then you follow Him for the wrong reasons.” (François Fénelon, 1651–1715)*
Oof.
Fénelon continues by writing, “Your mind is anxious to know, your heart wants to feel sweet feelings, but you are not willing to follow Christ to the cross. Is this dying to self? . . . To seek pleasure and to ignore the cross will not get you very far. You will soon be trapped in the pursuit of spiritual pleasures.”
Spiritual pleasures might include a sense of peace, joy in worship, comforting fellowship with God and others, insight into God’s Word, pride in sharing an inspired message, recognition of the Spirit’s voice, discovering and using God-given talents, and the ability to forgive and love. These are wonderful gifts, but they aren’t God Himself.
I confess that not only am I often trapped in the pursuit of spiritual pleasures, but I am also often trapped in my desire for earthly pleasures—snow on a rare Christmas visit to America, for example. I wonder if I’ve forgotten (ignored, even) Jesus’ pointed statement to His disciples that, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24)?
Many people like to ask the Lord for a word to frame the New Year. It’s a beautiful practice intended to give prophetic shape and spiritual intention to the coming season. I often hear people choose words like hope, renewal, trust, growth, or faithfulness. Words I’ve never heard chosen? Sacrifice. Death. Cross.
Christian leaders of ages past didn’t shy away from the concept of suffering as a means of spiritual growth, however. Miguel de Molinos (c. 1628-1696) writes: “God loves not the believer who does the most, nor who feels the most, nor who thinks the most cleverly and best, nor even that one who shows the greatest love, but He loves him who suffers the most.”
I’m likely as uncomfortable as you are with his suggestion that God loves one type of person more than another, but overlooking the awkward implications of that, I agree that God isn’t impressed by our works, feelings, or cleverness. Perhaps He does, in fact, find the most joy in our willingness to suffer for Him.
Of those who attempt to connect deeply with God but give up at the first sign of struggle, Molinos says, “There was no sense of God, there was no power, there was no sense of being pleased with their own thought, or being impressed with the way they formed their words and sentences to God. Actually all of these approaches to God are nothing but a hunt for sensible pleasures. This, to God, is but self love and seeking after self. It is really not a seeking after God at all. It is necessary that you suffer a little pain and a little dryness.”
The Church and missions (and culture in general, for that matter) seem to swing on a pendulum. Over the generations, we slide from one extreme of self-sacrifice to self-care, or from works-based to faith-based theology. The far side of either is detrimental, so we look at the errors and trauma caused by the past generation and over-correct.
Very few in this millennium want to pack up all our belongings in a coffin, leave home without any plans to return, and watch our children and spouses suffer, break, and even die under the mental, physical, and spiritual strain of our ministry. So we (myself included!) swing toward member care, soul care, retreats, debriefs, TCK care, counseling, sabbaticals, and even beautiful, supportive online communities like A Life Overseas in order to maintain health and longevity in life and ministry.
These things are absolutely wonderful and necessary.
But let’s not throw the gave-up-His-glory-and-comforts-of-Heaven-baby out with the I’m-drowning-in-ministry-demands-and-stress-bathwater. Maybe the way to true healing and wholeness is the way of the cross, the way of suffering, the way of death. Maybe we still need to receive a little of the exhortation of the past.
“How much do you desire to hunger after God? You will hunger after God, and find Him, in the same proportion that you hunger after the cross. Here is a true spiritual principle that the Lord will not deny: God gives us the cross, and then the cross gives us God.” (Madame Jeanne Guyon, 1648-1717)
Hunger. That just might be a New Year’s Word for us all.
*Quotes taken from 100 Days in the Secret Place: Classic Writings from Madame Guyon, Francois Fenelon, and Michael Molinos on the Deeper Christian Life by Gene Edwards
