Breaking the Growth Barrier

Mike Yaconnelli offers these challenging words about a prominent barrier to spiritual growth:

“What keeps many of us from growing is not sin but speed…Spiritual growth is not running faster, as in more meetings, more Bible studies, and more praying meetings.  Spiritual growth happens when we slow our activity down.  If we want to meet Jesus, we can’t do it on the run.  If we want to stay on the road of faith, we have to hit the brakes, pull over to a rest area, and stop.  Christianity is not about inviting Jesus to speed through life with us; it’s about noticing Jesus at the rest stop.”[i]

To remain on the road of faith, we have to hit the brakes.  Deceleration is especially necessary for healthy relationships.  For many of us, it was our failure to brake which ultimately created brokenness in a relationship.  When we survey the moments in which we’ve most harmed others or most neglected others, many of them correlate with times of hurry.  The greater the hurry the greater the harm.  What keeps many of us from growing, especially in our capacity for love, is not merely the selfishness of our hearts but the speed of our lives.  If we want to break our greatest growth barrier, we’re going to have to break the speed barrier.

We cannot be who Jesus envisioned us to be in relationship to other people when rushing characterizes our lives.  Relationships take time.  Compassion takes time.  Kindness takes time.  The more we bring hurry in our encounters with others the less we bring help.  The greater our busyness around others the fewer blessings we bring to others.

The cure?  Slow down.  Joseph Bailey suggests that love has a certain speed.  Love travels at a certain rate.  What is that speed?  Bailey argues that love usually travels much slower than we do.  If we wish to practice more love we have to reduce our RPM’s so that we are traveling at the speed of love.[ii] This allows us to be fully present in any given moment—present to those around and to their needs.

What’s your current speed?  How does this differ from the speed of love?

Steps to Slowing

Slowing is a discipline designed to eradicate frenzy from our lives.  The practice of slowing involves intentionally placing yourself in circumstances which create time for noticing and attending to others.  Slowing means placing yourself in a situation where you are forced to wait.

Here are some small ways to start practicing slowing: [iii]

• Drive in the slow lane.
• Eat your food slowly.
• Get in the longest line at the grocery store.
• Go the entire day without looking at a clock.
• Make shorter appointments.
• Don’t schedule back-to-back appointments with no break in-between.
• Take a deep breath before answering the phone.

These practices only prompt growth if we are intentional within them.  We are not just creating time to kill.  We are creating time to contribute.  As we slow we strive to become attentive to our surroundings and to the Spirit.  We seek to remember that God is present in this moment and that he may wish to use us to bless someone nearby.

Take Ten

Take ten minutes today and force yourself into a situation where you have to wait.  While your engine idles, look around.  Who do you see?  What are their needs?  In what ways might God work through you to bless them?  Take a moment and silently pray for God to use this “idle” time to bless someone.

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[ii] Joseph Bailey, Slowing Down to the Speed of Love (McGraw – Hill, 2004 ).

[iii] John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted (Zondervan, 1997), 89; Adele Calhoun, SpiritualDisciplines Handbook (IVP, 2005), 81.

I’m hungry, Lord.

Starving for your statutes.

Drooling for your decrees.

I can’t wait any longer.

My soul craves your Scripture more than my lungs long for air.

So pile my plate with your Word.

Tie a bib around my neck, put a fork in my hand and step back–this is going to be messy.

I’m going to dig in like a dying man.

I’m not going to stop until I lick the plate clean.

And then I ‘ll ask for seconds.

Nothing fulfills me like your Word, Lord.

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I used the opportunity to reflect on whether or not God really cares what we wear.  Here’s what I wrote…

I’ve never considered myself wise, Lord.

Most have more common sense than I.

Many celebrate smarts greater than mine.

Sometimes I feel like the Scarecrow–”I would not be just a nuffin’; My head all full of stuffin’; My heart all full of pain; I would dance and be merry; Life would be a ding-a-derry; If I only had a brain.”

But your Word, Lord–it makes me wise!

The more I ponder it, the more insight I gain.

The more I practice it, the more intelligence I’m given.

I feel like the Scarecrow–”The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side. Oh joy! Rapture! I got a brain! How can I ever thank you enough?”

Exactly–how can I ever thank you enough?

Thank you for the insight I find in the Word you’ve given.

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What is the best way to stay pure in an impure world?

What is the best way to attend to the interior in a world focused on the exterior?

Your Word is the way.

Your Word washes away my past impurities.

It keeps me future impurities.

Your Word gets bone-deep.

It transforms my heart and mind.

Because your word purifies me within and without I will walk its way today.

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I once served as an apprentice at a congregation close to the graduate school I was attending.  One summer the leaders of the congregation planned a road trip to a popular leadership seminar offered by a large church.  I wanted to go but did not have the funds.  My wife and I were literally pouring every cent into my studies.  But days before the event, my supervisor at the congregation informed me that someone had paid for me to go.  All costs were covered.  And, he said, the donor wished to remain anonymous.  I was overjoyed.  The trip and seminar were refreshing and paradigm-shaping.  I still feel the influence of that event.  And it was possible only because of an act of “secret service.”

Mark Buchanan writes about the importance of secrecy in our acts of service:

“We want to be either heroes or martyrs.  Our acts of service tend to rise from the yearning to be one or the other.  We want to be either carried on the crowd’s shoulders or trampled  beneath the mob’s feet…emblazon my name on the marquee or set me ablaze at the stake…Make me a hero or make me a martyr…[But] God invites us, Christlike, to become servants.  That means we’ll do many of our acts of service in secret.  We’ll do them regardless of whether we’re thanked or applauded.  We’ll do them not seeking persecution, but not avoiding it either.”[1]

A problem for many of us is that we want to do acts of service so striking that we are hailed as heroes.  Or we wish to do acts of service so sacrificial that we are memorialized as martyrs.  But some of the most impactful ways of serving are not-so-striking and not-so-sacrificial.  One of the most transformative habits to cultivate is that of serving others in ways that are routine, quiet and anonymous.  Secret service doesn’t necessarily make us heroes, because it isn’t noteworthy enough to make the news.  And, it doesn’t necessarily make us martyrs, because it isn’t valuable enough to go viral.  Instead, it simply makes us Christlike.

Secret service has transformative power because it runs so contrary to our fleshly desires.  Richard Foster writes,

“Of all the classical Spiritual Disciplines, service is the most conducive to the growth of humility…Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness.  The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service.”[2]

The flesh gripes against service.  But it groans against secret service.  The more we practice hidden acts of kindness for others, the more our flesh kicks and screams.  It craves the attention and applause which can only come from public and advertised service.  Most of us want to serve, as long as we get a mention on the ten o’clock news for our service.  But when service is hidden and secret, it forms us into people who look and love more like Jesus.

Secret service is, in the words of Dallas Willard, and act of trust:

“Few things are more important in stabilizing our walk of faith than [secrecy].  In the practice of secrecy, we experience a continuing relationship with God independent of the opinions of others…Secrecy rightly practiced enables us to place our public relations department entirely in the hands of God…”[3]

Many of us have our own private PR department.  We use it to promote a good image of ourselves among others.  And some of the greatest branding tools our PR department has are our acts of service.  Everyone loves a servant.  Thus we are tempted to plaster our compassionate conduct on billboards for all to see.  Yet, when we serve secretly and anonymously, we spin off our PR department and place it in the hands of God.  He alone takes over all branding decisions.  We are free to focus solely on serving.

This, of course, is not easy to do.  James Bryan Smith suggests that many of us live by the following narrative or story: “My value is determined by your assessment.” [4] We hunger for affirmation and attention from others because it establishes our value.  We believe there is no other way to determine our value other than what people say about us.  Thus we serve—but we serve in ways that bring attention to ourselves.  What is needed, Smith writes, is a new narrative.  Something like this: “My value is determined by God’s assessment.”  Because God’s view of me is the only one that matters, I can now live for an audience of one.  My worth is not dependent on what others think of me.  Thus I am free now to serve, and to serve secretly.

Take Ten

Take ten minutes to perform an act of secret service today.  Serve in a way that allows you to remain anonymous.  Tell no one about the act, not even the one whom you are serving.  Ask God to use this service not only to bless the recipient, but to change you, the giver.

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[2] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline Revised and Expanded (Harper & Row, 1978), 130.

[3] Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines (HarperSanFrancisco, 1988), 172-173.

[4] James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Character.

Lord, the weak were worn down.

The powerful abused their position.

So you sent forth a king.

Through him you brought justice.

You lifted the lowly.

You collapsed those in control.

Now, Lord, send forth us.

Use us to bring justice to all.

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Lord, sometimes I forget.

I forget that day your people refused to enter their Land.

I forget those times your people worshiped other gods.

I forget those times you forgave their infidelity–again and again.

But this morning, Lord, I remember.

I remember how, through all their failures, your love endured.

I remember how, through all my failures, your love endured.

And as I remember what happened to them and what’s happened to me, I say, “Hallelujah!”

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Lord, because you are full of love and justice, I make this vow:

I will be blameless.

I will expel evil from my life.

I will rescue my neighbor from injustice.

I will remedy whatever is wrong in my home, my city, and my land.

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Making Our Last Resort the First Resort

I was recently talking to a friend who is a preaching minister.  For several months he had faced an immovable impediment in his ministry.  One person was frustrating every move he made to pursue the path he believed God wanted his congregation to take.  He and other leaders had discerned bold visions for the church’s future, but all plans were on pause because of this single stubborn person.  My friend tried everything to pass the impasse.  He sought to reason with the man.  Then, he asked his mentors what to say and do.  And, he sent other church leaders to speak to the individual.  But all this work produced no progress.

Finally, one day, a colleague from another congregation asked my friend, “Have you fasted and prayed about this?  If I were you, that’s what I would do.  Fast and pray.”  My friend had not.  That week he began.  He decided to spend each Thursday fasting and praying.

Four weeks later, that intractable individual holding everything up and holding everyone hostage took a job offer in another state.

Prayer had been my friend’s last resort.  It should have been his first resort.  Because, in the end, it was his only resort.

Jesus makes a similar case in his Sermon on the Mount.  In Matt. 6:1-18 Jesus speaks specifically about piety, about growing more intimate with the Father.  Jesus draws attention to three practices of piety: giving, praying, and fasting.  Of the three, Jesus shows prayer to be the most indispensable.

First, Jesus spends greater time speaking on prayer than on the other two practices which are mentioned in his section on piety.  Giving receives three verses of Jesus’ speech.  Fasting similarly receives three verses.  But prayer receives eleven verses.  Jesus devotes nearly four times the space to speaking on prayer as he does highlighting these other practices.

Second, when we consider that fasting (Matt. 6:16-18) by its very nature centers on prayer, two-thirds of Jesus’ piety presentation contain instruction and inspiration regarding prayer.  Of the eighteen verses in this message on spirituality, fourteen focus on prayer.

Third, when Jesus speaks of fasting and of giving, he identifies mistakes which other Jewish spiritual leaders are making.  But in his section on supplication, Jesus additionally identifies mistakes which Gentile spiritual leaders are making.  Jesus is so intent on ensuring that we experience prayer as originally intended that he doubles his efforts to reveal flawed approaches to it.  That is, Jesus spends twice as long clarifying wrong approaches to prayer as he does clarifying wrong approaches to giving or to fasting.

Finally, only in the portion on prayer does Jesus give us a “formula.”  Only here does Jesus spell out in detail exactly how to do prayer.  It’s here we find the “Lord’s Prayer.”  Though never intended as something which must be said word-for-word, its words nonetheless have become the pathway to richer prayer for centuries.  Countless Christians have grown more in tune with the Father and more in line with his will through the words of this prayer than any other prayer.  No other section in Jesus’ piety presentation contains this level of detailed instruction.

If we wish to dive deeper into the spiritual life, prayer must never be our last resort.  It must always be our first resort.

Ready Made Prayers

And Jesus’ model-prayer introduces something which Mark Thibodeaux calls “ready-made prayers.”^[i] Ready-made prayers are those which someone else has authored for us.  We pray using someone else’s words rather than our own.  And by praying them, we are led into experiences we may have never reached by relying solely on our own prayer-words.

Scripture is full of these ready-made prayers.  In fact, Adele Calhoun writes that “In the early centuries of the church, believers were taught to pray the Scriptures.  Since the Bible is divinely inspired, they believed that praying Scripture deeply connected them to the mind and heart of God.  Furthermore, as Scripture was repeatedly prayed, it became memorized.  This was a wonderful benefit for those who were illiterate.  It also meant that memorized Scripture could lead them to pray at any hour of the day or night.”[ii] For centuries Christians have relied heavily on the ready-made prayers found in Scripture.

In upcoming posts, we’ll explore three sources of these “pre-packaged” prayers in the Bible: the Psalms, Jesus’ prayers, and the prayers and writings of Paul.

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[ii] Adele Calhoun Spiritual Disciplines Handbook (IVP Books, 2005), 246.