Aslan is on the move. Revolution is in the air. Those living in darkness have seen a great light.
This summer we had the opportunity to visit believers from around the country and around the world. Over the last several years, I have met with a number of pastors, missionaries, and other followers of Jesus, and have experienced a recurring phenomenon that has captured my attention in a way that cannot be overstated. At the same time, while reading authors from a broad range of Christian traditions, I have been struck by the astounding similarity of their descriptions of what God seems to be doing in their own lives and in the communities in which they practice their faith.
The whole thing started in 2015 and early 2016, when I went through a burnout experience and subsequent sabbatical which dramatically altered my life and the way I perceive and practice my Christianity. During my sabbatical, I engaged in reevaluating my life and faith, and through this process began to experience some radical changes. In the months that followed, God seemed to be leading us on a journey that was difficult to describe, but was so powerful and compelling, I could not keep it to myself. When I tried to explain it to a select few individuals, my articulation was as clear as the coffee we were drinking. I am thankful for those close friends and colleagues who graciously let me “process” out loud as I attempted to verbalize what God was doing in our lives. Over the next year and a half, God began to give us the vocabulary to describe what was taking place and, at the same time, we began to realize that we were not alone. In fact, as we journey forward we continue to meet others on the same path, and as we share our stories with each other, a very specific set of common themes emerged.
I have now lost count of the number of times I have been talking with someone, and we realize that our stories are very much the same. I can see it in their eyes and facial expression even before they tell me their own experience. I have also lost track of the number of times I have listened to someone else give the account of their own journey and, aside from names and details, our stories share a remarkable similarity.
This article is an attempt to begin to outline some of these common themes, as well as propose for evaluation the idea that these common themes point to a work of the Spirit that may well be the beginnings of a spiritual revolution.
“I had been a Christian for many years, but for the first time I …” Many people on this road will describe an experience as a child or young adult in which they heard the “gospel” and responded by praying and receiving Jesus as their Savior. This “gospel” goes something like this: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. He wants us to live an abundant life today and an eternal life with Him forever in heaven. Our sin has separated us from God, and so we do not experience this abundant life today and cannot live with Him in heaven. But because of His love, Jesus came to earth, lived a sinless life, died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead on the third day. If we turn from our sins and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, then we are reconciled to God and receive that life today and can look forward to eternity with Him in heaven. You can respond to Him right now, by praying and confessing that you are a sinner, turning from your sins and accepting His forgiveness, and then starting a relationship with God. And so we prayed that prayer, and over time those seeds of faith sprouted, and we began to learn more about the Bible and grow in our understanding of God and what it means to be a Christian. This all sounds good at first. The problem is, this is only a small part of the Gospel. This way of framing the gospel lays a foundation of understanding that actually prevents us from experiencing the grace and life that God intended when He invited us into a relationship with Him through Jesus. Just how this happens will have to be the subject of another article, because my point here is this: the people who I have met on this road all responded to that gospel, but years later went through a subsequent experience that they describe as being so much more transformative and life-changing, that it feels as if they are experiencing God’s grace for the first time. And the pattern of this process leads to the next common themes.
“I was working hard to serve God and live out the Christian life and in many ways, it was great. On the surface things were going well, but inside …” The next theme has to do with life as a believer, learning the Bible, serving the Lord, growing in the faith and building relationships with other Christians at church. We were doing all the right things, but over time we began to realize that there was a disconnect between what was visible on the surface and what was going on underneath. We began to get a growing sense that we, and those we go to church with, are not experiencing the abundant life that we thought God had promised. Instead of peace and joy, initial spiritual victories were followed by an increased expectation to continue to perform. Looking back, we may not be able to determine if those expectations were from others or from ourselves or some combination of the two, but those expectations to display the goodness of God through our victorious life became a source of pressure, anxiety and inner turmoil. We suffered from a Christian version of cognitive dissonance but were afraid to expose our tension or frustration because of the fear of being shamed by our community. We tried to contain the pain by putting our fingers over the holes in the dam that held it in, but eventually, the levee broke and the pain spilled out. In time, we realized that this was the Grace of God at work because it opened the way to experiencing the true Love of God in a way that we never thought possible. This leads to the next common theme, the discovery of our identity as children of God and a life that flows from being loved and valued by the Father.
“I knew that I was saved by grace, but over time I realized that I was drawing my sense of significance and worth from how much I thought my actions pleased or displeased God.” Earlier I asserted that the non-biblical way we often hear the gospel lays the groundwork for a distorted and destructive form of Christianity. Consider the following logic: If the essence of our problem is that we are sinful and morally bad, and if Jesus came to save us from that problem by His grace and sacrifice, then it naturally follows that the result of that salvation will be to bring us to a point of being cleansed of that sin, declared righteous and brought into a state of being morally good. If my sin is what caused God to be so unhappy and disappointed with me that He threatened to send me to hell when I die, then it makes sense that the point of my salvation is to make me into a good person who is pleasing to God, thus I begin to see sinful actions as causing God to look on me with disgust, and to be ashamed of me. We talk a lot about how God loves us unconditionally, how His grace is so amazing and His forgiveness is so complete. But somehow the subtle yet persistent messages of how much our goodness pleases God and how much our sin angers Him, leads to a pervasive sense that His acceptance and approval flow toward us in proportion to our moral behavior. Like a child who confuses parental approval with parental love, we acquire a deeply ingrained sense that God’s affection toward us ebbs and flows in accordance with our actions whether obedient or sinful. We verbally affirm God’s unconditional love, and in our minds we know it’s true, but deep down, in the depths of our soul, we find it difficult to accept that which we have never experienced. There is a difference between knowing something is true and experiencing something as real. Because of our past experiences of uncertain love and conditional acceptance, perhaps reinforced by subtle or not-so-subtle messages we have received from others within our Christian community, we find it very difficult to experience as real this unconditional and unmerited love, affection and acceptance of God. And the connection between our ability to receive love is inseparably bound to our sense of value and self-worth. We cannot love what we do not value. And we will always measure our own value by our perceived sense of love from those who matter most. And how we measure our value and experience our sense of worth, will always be central to our self-image and identity. I keep meeting people who describe some version of this process of experiencing God’s love in a new and deeply profound way, leading to a new understanding of their own value, culminating in a new sense of their identity as a child, fully received and embraced by the Father.
These are three of the common themes that continue to surface in my conversations with other believers. Like brightly colored threads that stand out in the fabric of the stories we trade with fellow travelers on our way, these themes seem to be pointing to something important that God is up to. The essence of these themes cut to the core of what God has told us about who He is and who we are. They are tied to our understanding of the Gospel itself. As those who want to follow Christ, they are the very things on which we base our lives and from which flow everything we think, feel and do. Could these be a sign that God is on the verge of doing something that may later be described as a new chapter in history? A reformation of sorts? A spiritual revolution that will change the shape of the church and the world in the centuries to come?