Spiritual health: An old obsession remembered How are you doing spiritually? How's your walk with the Lord? Are you in the right place with God? At one time these questions were ways for me of checking up on other people's spiritual lives, making sure they were doing all the things Christians were supposed to do. Reading your Bible and praying every day were about the bare bones of it, along with not committing any of the "big" sins. It was a bit of an obsession back then. Beneath the aura of Christian concern was a feeling that I had to control other people's spiritual lives, make sure they weren't "backsliding", ensure they knew exactly what was required of them to be upstanding, advancing citizens of the kingdom of God.
Nowadays -- and I am aware this is totally and utterly scandalous -- I hardly worry at all about other people's "spiritual health". If people tell me they're experiencing doubts or they've stopped reading their Bibles, I don't panic. I don't rush to my evangelical handbook to find the antidote.
I suppose there are a couple of reasons for this. I'd say I have more faith in God these days, but that would sound smug and superior to some, so let's just say I have a very different kind of faith in God. I trust him with his children. I don't feel I need to be in control of other people's spiritual lives in order to keep them on track. God can handle other people quite well without me sticking my nose in all the time. Secondly, I simply don't see these things as cause for concern, because the gospel to me speaks of life coming out of death. When I see people losing their faith, or doubting God, or struggling to keep up with all the things they think they should be doing, I don't see it as a negative. I see it as an opportunity for the Spirit to come and do his stuff, a sign of life, because life being found in death is the gospel through and through.
It's rather like my being part of the Anglican church. The worldwide Anglican Communion is being torn apart by schism at the moment. A friend of mine described the Archbishop of Canterbury's current role as "rearranging deck-chairs on the Titanic." And I'm sure there are some who wonder what anyone is doing hanging around on a sinking ship. Truth is, I'm not really bothered about crumbling institutions. I look at the Anglican Church, and for all the ugliness I can see right now, I'm not in despair, but hopeful, because the very gospel I cling to is about life in the midst of death, power in the midst of weakness. When I see death -- man, I love the irony of the gospel -- I don't see the end, but I see the seeds of new life.
If all that sounds totally crazy, that's because God's crazy, and so's the gospel.
Dave
9:58:35 AM 
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