Another reason I liked working in the Starbucks drive-through was the view out the window. Beyond Riverside Drive and past an assortment of banks and strip malls stood the foothills, green year-round thanks to our beloved evergreen trees. I didn’t fully appreciate them until I went to school in Southern California and lived without green 11 months out of the year. Beyond the foothills rose Mount Baker, snowcapped even in the middle of summer. I’ve seen many beautiful things in my life, but few compared to seeing our mountain painted pink by the sunset and flanked by a silver moon.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I’ve always been surrounded by beauty—mountains, forests, rivers, and the San Juan Islands. Washington and Oregon frequently appear on lists of the least churched states in the Union, and sociologists suggest that is because nature provides spiritual experiences here without church. I know that my most powerful encounters with God usually happen in nature. People who live in places like this understand the beauty and majesty of God in ways that other people may not. On the other hand, perhaps people from the Great Plains understand his vastness as I cannot, and city dwellers might see his face in humanity better than I do.
We’ve talked about enjoying earthly things without guilt, but it would be a tragedy if you used that as an excuse to neglect spiritual joy and not seek God himself. My hope and prayer is that what you read here makes you long for God more, not less. I wrote earlier that God should not be your only joy. But he must be your ultimate joy—the source of every happiness and the reality behind the glimpses.
I’ve enjoyed skydiving and white-water rafting, but rare moments of feeling God’s undeniable presence have brought me deeper thrills than anything else I’ve experienced. Prayer in the middle of great turmoil has filled me with peace, comfort, and perspective that the best counsel of friends could not match. Quiet moments in nature with God have ushered in moments of happiness so sublime that they cannot be shared without cheapening them.
Even still, I’m not sure that I’m the best one to talk about enjoying God and his presence. In my experience, those moments I described are rare and hard to come by. It’s much easier for me to find joy in earthly things than spiritual things. Seeking spiritual joy is far from natural or automatic for me. Most of the time it’s hard work. This isn’t false humility—conversations with others have shown me that some people have an easier time seeking and enjoying spiritual things than I do. Perhaps this chapter will seem elementary to you, but if you also struggle to enjoy God, I hope my experiences can help you. Here are four things that have been helpful for me.
Looking for Reflections
In the last chapter, we saw that earthly celebrations can provide glimpses of heaven. In the same way, properly enjoying this life helps me seek spiritual things. On days when enjoying God loses concrete meaning and spiritual practices feel more like sacrifice than joy, I remember all the joy in this life. If God has filled this world with so much joy, how much more must knowing him bring joy? If God delights in me, might I also delight in him? This doesn’t magically make prayer as much fun as watching a football game, but it gives me hope that prayer will bring me joy in the long run.
Delayed and Instant Gratification
One of the best parts about working at Starbucks was the generous coffee benefit. Every week we received one pound of coffee. Before and after each shift we’d get a free drink or two, and during our shift there was no limit. Unfortunately, my waistline began to reflect this benefit. Fortunately, Marilyn worked at a health club at the time, so I used the free membership to work off my Starbucks pounds.
Some people talk about how much they love exercise—feeling the burn, getting high on endorphins, and all that. I’m not one of those people. I hate exercise. Each week I’d go to a group weight lifting class and try to keep up with the masochistic German instructor. The only thing that kept me going was counting down the minutes until I could relax in the sauna. I loved the sauna. It was actually good for sermon writing—something about the sound-dampening steam, stifling heat, and cool tiles allowed me to wander through the dense forest in my mind and find order.
Every time I went to the gym I had to fight the temptation to skip the workout and head straight to the sauna. I gave in a couple of times, telling myself I was short on time and needed to start brainstorming on the sermon. The funny thing is, it didn’t work without the misery of exercise. The thoughts that normally jumped out at me remained hidden behind the trees.
So I exercise—not because I enjoy it, but because I enjoy the results. I like not getting winded by a trip up the stairs. I like the self-discipline that spills over into other areas of my life. I like the extra energy I have for work and playing with Grace and Sarah. I keep these things in my mind as I suffer. I keep reminding myself that I exercise in order to improve the chances of playing with my future great-grandchildren.
All joy lies somewhere along a spectrum. On the left side of the spectrum is instant gratification, and on the right side is eternal joy in God’s presence (the ultimate delayed gratification). Somewhere in the middle is long-term earthly joy. None of these joys are wrong, but each has its proper time and place. Even instant gratification can be entirely appropriate, as when we are refreshed by ice cold water on a hot day.
The problem comes whenever we seek one of these joys at the expense of the others. Many Christians spend most of their energy on the left side, seeking instant gratification and the immediate payoff. This is like skipping the workout and heading straight for the sauna, followed by a Venti Caramel Frappuccino to cool down. Complacent, nearsighted Christianity is all too willing to live for today at the expense of eternal happiness. On the other hand, obsessive, farsighted Christianity places all the emphasis on spiritual joy at the expense of earthly happiness. It can be like a personal trainer who makes you feel guilty if you don’t run one more mile, lift five more pounds, or avoid eating anything with fat or sugar in it.
Spiritual Disciplines
To embrace spiritual joy, we frequently have to choose long-term happiness over instant gratification. Throughout the Bible and church history, we’ve been encouraged to do that through various spiritual disciplines, such as praying, reading the Bible, embracing solitude, and fasting. Living as we do in an age of instant gratification, these have naturally fallen from favor. Spiritual discipline would be a lot easier if it had the same immediate payoff as a gourmet chocolate cake. Rather than trying to pretend the disciplines are fun, I’ve found that focusing on the long-term benefits helps me get started.
There are many disciplines, but I want to focus on five that are good to begin with—solitude and silence, prayer, fasting, Bible reading, and church participation. Many excellent books on spiritual discipline are available, so I don’t need to repeat what they say. I’ll just give you a quick summary from my perspective (see appendix 2 for more resources).
Solitude and Silence
The constant barrage of noise in our modern world leaves little room in our minds for God. It takes intentional effort to slow down, be alone, turn off the phone, quiet the chatter in our head, and just be.
Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth (Psalm 46:10).
Practicing silence and solitude teaches you to slow down and enjoy God. I think that’s one of the reasons nature is such an effective place for me to experience God—I’m by myself without distractions. Here is how to practice this. Find ten minutes a day to be alone and quiet with God. Take a walk without headphones or drive home without the radio on. Notice how strange the quiet feels and realize how conditioned to noise you’ve become. Ask God to quiet your heart.
Prayer
Prayer can include structured times of asking for God’s intervention as well as free-form conversations with him. Both are important. I love having a running conversation with God throughout the day and asking for his help as situations come up. Staying focused through my times of structured prayer is difficult for me—which is why it’s so important. Practice both types and pay closer attention to the one that comes less naturally.
Fasting
Fasting used to play a large role in the Christian life, but it’s all but ignored in modern America. Why is that? Because it requires not eating! Yet try as I might, I can’t get around the fact that Jesus expects us to fast.
John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast” (Matthew 9:14-15).
When I finally started obeying, I learned that fasting did some things that nothing else could. For instance, fasting gives my prayers greater focus because it costs me something. Fasting also helped me realize that I was supposed to be in control of my body, not the other way around. (Fasting has taught me another lesson, one of the most important of my life, but I’m saving that for chapter 16.)
Paradoxically, fasting also helps me enjoy earthly things more. My family has recently started observing Lent by giving up something that’s perfectly acceptable (such as sugar) for the 40 days prior to Easter. I don’t need to tell you how much Grace and Sarah look forward to their Easter baskets! There was another unexpected benefit. We follow the tradition that takes Sundays off from the fast, so my daughters also look forward to their hot chocolate and dessert every Sunday during Lent.1 I can’t tell you how much I love knowing that my daughters have come to associate Sunday with the joy of hot cocoa and marshmallows.
Bible Reading
I recently read about a survey that indicated that the best predictor of your ability to resist temptation isn’t church attendance, prayer, or participation in an accountability group. People are most likely to resist temptation if they read their Bibles four times a week or more. That surprised me at first, but it lines up perfectly with what Scripture says about itself.
How can a young person stay on the path of purity?
By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you (Psalm 119:9-11).
There is no substitute for spending time reading, studying, and meditating on God’s Word. Through it, God speaks to us and fills us with hope, wisdom, joy, and strength. Bear in mind that on Judgment Day, you won’t be able to blame your pastor for your lack of spiritual knowledge—you have a Bible and the ability to study it for yourself as well as the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
Church Participation
Church as a part of the Christian life has declined significantly in past decades. People ask, “Do I have to go to church in order to be a Christian?” Technically, no you don’t. But technically, being married doesn’t mean you have to have sex either. Yet if there is no intimacy, something very important (and desirable) is missing. If you’re not committed to a healthy, local church body, it’s to your detriment and loss.2
Just as the health benefits keep me exercising when I don’t want to, knowing that these disciplines will bring me joy keeps me going. Also like physical exercise, they become easier and more enjoyable the more I practice them. My tastes become more attuned to enjoying spiritual things, and I feel the loss when I skip these disciplines.
A couple of weeks ago, I was getting pretty anxious about finishing this book on time and was struggling with a chapter that wouldn’t come together. Marilyn wisely suggested that I take a break from writing to spend time with God. At first, I objected that I didn’t have the time, but I knew she was right. It was amazing how much a walk around a pond did to remind me how much I enjoyed being with him. Through silence and solitude, a little praying, and meditating on a verse, God reminded me that my writing was about him and what he wanted to speak to me, not my ceaseless striving. It was as if he said, “I’ve missed you,” and I realized I missed him too.
Experiencing God in Worship
Did you notice that I didn’t talk about worship as a spiritual discipline? I was saving it. This is the one that has had the greatest impact on me personally.
Growing up in Charismatic and Pentecostal churches, the emphasis was always on experiencing God through worship, which was thought to be synonymous with singing songs. The problem was that I just didn’t enjoy worship as much as everyone else. I assumed that something must be wrong with me, so I kept trying harder. I’d focus on the lyrics as best I could. Sometimes I’d find unintentional contradictions—is the greatest thing in my life supposed to be knowing God, loving him, or serving him?3 Whenever I mentioned these to someone, I just got a blank stare. But every once in a while, I’d discover something new about God during worship, and then I’d really experience his presence.
Have you ever read a book that answered deep questions you didn’t even know to ask? That happened to me when I read Gary Thomas’s book Sacred Pathways. The very short version is that each of us is wired differently, so we worship and experience God’s presence in different ways. He lists nine biblical pathways to worshipping. All of them should play a part in our Christian walk, but some will be more meaningful for you than others. Which of these pathways, or spiritual temperaments, resonate the most with you?
intellectual—loving God with the mind
contemplative—loving God through adoration
enthusiast—loving God with mystery and celebration
caregiver—loving God by loving others
activist—loving God through confrontation
ascetic—loving God in solitude and simplicity
traditionalist—loving God through ritual and symbol
sensate—loving God with the senses
naturalist—loving God out of doors
Thomas’s book set me free. I finally understood why singing songs did little to help me worship, but a walk in the woods ushered me into God’s presence. And nothing was wrong about really enjoying God by loving him with my mind.
How about you? Have you ever felt as if something were wrong with you because of how you experience God? Denominations and churches tend to be built around specific pathways, so unless you happen to be in a church that fits your pathways, you may feel like something of a misfit. Could discovering your pathways help you to genuinely enjoy God more?
How do we know if we’re doing all of these spiritual practices enough? If we’re seeking spiritual joy enough? I used to struggle with this a lot. If I read one chapter in the Bible, I felt bad for not reading two. If I prayed for ten minutes, I felt unspiritual for not praying for twenty. Sometimes it was easier not to start than to feel guilty for stopping.
Enough is one of the most devastating words in the Christian’s vocabulary. How can you know when you’re doing enough? It’s simple. You are never doing enough. There are always more prayers to pray and verses to read. This is one of the most neglected aspects of grace—even at our very best, we can never practice the spiritual disciplines enough. In the end, it’s still about relying on God’s grace and trusting Jesus to do what we cannot. Spiritual health isn’t found in obsessively trying to do it all but gratefully playing the part he has given us.
So how can we tell whether we’re playing our part? How do we avoid being complacent under the guise of grace? By looking to scriptural examples of balancing earthly and spiritual joys. As we saw in the last chapter, God commands us to fast and to feast. Obedience and joy require that we balance these.
Maybe balance isn’t the best word. It implies finding a fixed point between two extremes. Have you ever tried to balance on top of a post? You don’t keep your balance by staying perfectly still. You stay balanced by making countless little adjustments to counter wind, muscle fatigue, and friends who are trying to push you off. Likewise, the balance between earthly and spiritual joy is anything but static. Most of the time, earthly joys capture our attention and we need to lean into spiritual things in order to keep balanced. But the minute we start to feel confident in our spiritual disciplines, self-righteousness and legalism begin to pull us the other way, so we need to embrace earthly joys more.
I’ve found that the closest I can come to balance is this radically normal ebb and flow of earthly joys and spiritual disciplines. One of the reasons why consistent spiritual practices are so helpful is that they serve as ongoing reminders to keep focusing our eyes on God and eternity. They create a cycle—enjoy…abstain…enjoy. Have times of fasting, Scripture, prayer, and worship, interwoven with times of celebration and enjoyment. This is what I see in Scripture and what has worked in my life. It’s not stagnant perfection, but an ongoing work of God’s grace.
Again and again, we come back to joy. The better we know God and do what he wants us to do, the more joy we’ll find, both in the here and now and the hereafter. That’s the truth we’ll explore in the next chapter—obedience that brings joy.