Invitation Over Obligation
I listened to a podcast the other day. It was evangelical in flavor, interviewing a Christian semi-public figure about the ministry work she’s been doing.
She spoke of a terrible season of her life, one of emotional loss and physical suffering. As she told her story in that interview, she was asked what was her biggest regret of that season of despair and pain. Her answer was that she wished she had regular Bible reading during that time, and not let her physical pain keep her from God’s presence.
And as I listened, I felt a internal constriction, my chest tightened and my breathing sped up. This is my kryptonite, when another believer discusses what she failed in doing during a painful season of her life. I know all about failure, all about spiritual practices I should have done. There’s a scarcity mentality that I see often in the evangelical church, an acceptance of shame that my younger self learned to live in, that I still work hard to push back against, knowing that shame warps my faith to look more like fear than freedom.
After hearing about her suffering, I longed for her to say she regretted not leaning into God’s kindness sooner, not letting herself experience grace. I thought of how close God must have been then, how much God’s presence must have longed to warm her and hold her, to cover her broken body and spirit like a blanket. But instead I heard failure in her voice, failure in her answer.
Now, to be fair, I can’t judge her answer, or her experience of God in that season. She spoke as someone who loves scripture. And I so value her commitment and love for experiencing God through the pages of the Bible. The response I had to her words in that moment was born out of my own shame, my own fear that God’s grace is not enough, that my success at spiritual practices is the only way God will want me, accept me, love me. I’ve been on a long, ten year journey of believing that what God wants to offer me is an invitation, not an obligation: That prayer and Bible reading is not a way to earn God’s love or delight.
Spiritual Practices are an invitation into that blanket, that covering of God’s love. Spiritual practices are gifts we can receive, not tasks we perform to make God happy, or feel better about ourselves, or even to heal ourselves.
As we head into the Advent season, my prayer is that we would choose to practice God’s presence with a lightness of heart, a belief that we are not on a spiritual performance hamster wheel, but that instead we are on a walk through a beautiful garden. Every time we pray, every time we open our sacred texts, we’re entering through another gate, invited into another garden. This one holding something new, something hope-filled, something good.
Making your gift giving GOOD
The Lucky Few Podcast just released our Holiday Gift Guide this past Monday! Here are just a few of the organizations I'm excited about. Listen to the podcast to hear more!
1. 99 Balloons - 9 out of 10 children with different abilities in developing nations do not attend school. This org works in Haiti, Uganda, and Southern Asia to provide school for these children through sponsorships.
2. Dance Happy Designs: Super cool tote bags designed and screen-printed by three friends, one with Down Syndrome!
3. Preemptive Love Coalition: Purchase beautiful apparel, candles, soaps and more to unmake violence and create jobs for refugees in war town areas.
I'd love to list them all. Totally worth a listen!
Poems available for the Advent Season
Several years ago I was commissioned by a church to write a series of Advent poems. These poems are available for your church or personal use through the "By/For Project."
Advent is coming, friends.
"Celebration survives on contradiction. To feast, we must first fast. To come to real consummation, we must first live in longing. To taste specialness, we must first have a sense of what is ordinary." -Ronald Rolheiser, OMI