Getting Intimate (with God)
Some years ago now, I was asked by my spiritual director a pretty important question: how are you drawing near to God? At the heart of the question is a concern about whether or not I was growing in intimacy with God through my own prayer practices in my daily life. As someone who was in the process of discerning a call to ordained ministry, it was a pretty important question to be asked of me if I was going to be able to have a response to a similar question whether from my bishop or from a member of the Commission on Ministry as I moved through the formal discernment process. The problem, though, is that these questions are most commonly asked of people who are doing as I was - formally discerning a call to the ordained ministry. I say it is a problem because it is not a question that was generally asked of me by other people in my life - even those with whom I was particularly close with at church. The question my spiritual director asked is a question that is important to our development as persons of faith seeking to live our lives according to our faith. If we are not taking up spiritual practices in our daily living, it is not likely that we are going to be able to grow in our intimacy with God, which also means that our growth as a disciple of Jesus will also slow or stop altogether. Our growth as disciples is linked to the ways that we seek to grow in relationship with God; our growth as disciples is linked to our personal and corporate spiritual practices.
As I sat with my spiritual director in that conversation, I found a response to her question, which was intended to discern how I was already praying. In listening carefully to my response, she was able to steer me towards a resource that I have used as one of my regular, if not daily, spiritual practices, and it is a resource that I continue to point people towards as a way to begin the practice of daily prayer. As I picked up that prayer practice, I did not realize, at first, how important it would become to my own spiritual development, and I probably did not think that I actually needed to develop spiritually. After all, I had already been confirmed and was a full member of the church. Hadn’t I done all of the things that I needed to do?
Of course, the response to that last question is clearly that I still had much learning and growing to do in my spiritual life. It is not really any different in the present day: I continue to have much learning and growing to do in my spiritual life. It is a gift that we are never quite finished growing and developing spiritually. As we age in life, we encounter new ways of being intimate with God, and if we are practicing spiritual practices on a regular rhythm, then we are also able to experience the growth that comes with taking up a practice and sticking with it for a prolonged period of time. (I have been doing my daily spiritual practice for nearly 13 years now.)
Thus, a daily spiritual practice is a way for us to allow the mutterings of our hearts to be made known to God in such a way that we are able to recognize those mutterings as our prayers. One of the benefits of a daily practice is our ability to recognize more clearly the very things for which we are praying - whether that is something for ourselves or for someone else who is close to us. In saying our prayers daily, we begin to draw nearer to God in the same way we draw nearer to others with whom we are intimate: by spending time together.
As with many of our most intimate relationships, we begin with some hesitancy around spending more time with another. Do I really want to open up to this person or that person? Do I actually want to be this vulnerable to another at this moment in my life? What will happen if I open up at this time? How will I be changed as a person because I take on this risk of intimacy? These are all natural questions that come with forming more intimate relationships with people our midst, and they are natural questions to be asked when we begin a practice of growing in our intimacy with God too. But, if we are courageous and willing to take the risk to become more intimate (with God and with other people), we will grow in our development as a human being, as a person of faith, and as a disciple seeking to pattern our lives after that of Christ Jesus.
For reflection:
What are your current practices of prayer, and how often do you practice them?
How do you feel about growing in intimacy with God? What might it feel like to take up a spiritual practice for a time to grow in your relationship with God?
Spiritual practices…take practice! Create a daily appointment with God for the next 21 days. How do you grow as a person of faith? How do you grow in relationship with God? How do you grow in relationship with others?
Reflect on a time that you were particularly intimate or vulnerable with God. What drew you nearer to God? What are the mutterings of your heart that are drawing you nearer to God today?
