My sheep will hear my voice.  They will not follow the voice of a stranger but will run from it.                                           John 10:27

“Do not believe every spirit but test them to see if they come from God”  (1Jn. 4:1).
So counsels the apostle John.  But how often do we actually heed this counsel?  How many decisions, actions or false interpretations of our circumstances are inspired by a spirit other than Christ’s?   And how can we be more attentive to these spirits so that we can learn to ignore or flee the many “stranger’s voices” that would otherwise lead us away from the peace of God’s guidance?

I am convinced that there are many spirits that influence my thinking and actions in the course of a day, and that not all of them come from God.  They threaten to derail my spiritual direction in both the large decisions of life as well as the seemingly trivial ones.  These spirits might even lead me to good actions, but if they do so by a spirit that is not from Christ, they will inevitably bear a bad fruit in me.

What does a good action led by a bad spirit look like?  A typical example of this for a pastor might be the perennial feeling that I should phone or visit someone.  There is nothing wrong of course with this initiative but the spirit that inspires such a good action might not necessarily be from the Lord.  It could be a spirit of guilt that I want to relieve.   Or perhaps it is my fear of what the person might think of me if I don’t call.  Or worse, it could be my secret hope that they will see me as a good pastor if I do show such care.  In each of these cases it is easy to recognize that the spirit inspiring this action comes from below rather than from above.  If that is so then, according to Jesus, I should choose to not follow that spirit.

It is not the thought of visiting this person that is wrong, but more the reason for doing so.  Rather than follow a spirit of guilt, fear or manipulation into this action, I should wait for another spirit to lead me, one that I more easily recognize as my Shepherd’s voice.   Perhaps it will be a spirit of compassion, love, or of genuine concern for this person that motivates me to action.  This is the spirit I should act on as I now recognize it as having Christ-like characteristics.  Following this good spirit, my visit or conversation with this person will surely be different than if I had acted according to the “stranger’s voice.”

Following this same reasoning, I have made it a rule to never let myself be led in any of my actions or decisions by a spirit of anxiety.  The moment I sense that anxiety is the interface between me and some task or decision I am considering I will let go of that spirit and wait for a more Godly one, perhaps joy, love, peace or freedom, to lead me into this action .

For much of my life, fear and stress have overly motivated me in my responses.  They have, in fact, been my spiritual directors, leading my actions, initiatives and inspiring too often how I interpret the circumstances of my life and future.  Looking back I can see how the fruit that this spirit bore in me and in my relationship to life did not resemble the grace of God.  As Jesus asks, “Can a thorn bush bear grapes?” (Mt. 7:16)

Guilt, anxiety or fear are all very effective motivators for action.  Much gets done in this world prompted by such negative spirits.  But we can easily become slaves to such spirits and we need to recognize how dishonouring it is to the Lord when we do.  To walk through life as if the sky is about to fall is not only harmful but also undignified for the children of God.  Jesus tells us to not heed the “stranger’s voice” that offers to lead us in our life and action by such spirits of guilt, fear or worry.  Instead we are to honour God in the poise of faith, as children who truly trust their Lord.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. Can you think of times when you have been led to a decision or action by a spirit of guilt, fear or anxiety?  What fruit did this spirit bear in you or in this situation?  Is there a negative spirit that is overly determining your responses to life?

2. How can you cultivate a greater awareness of the various spirits that lead you in the course of a day so that you can choose more wisely which ones to follow?

3. How does the practice of silent prayer help you identify such spirits that are suggesting themselves to you?  How does it help you be more attentive to the spiritual movements that take place within you in the course of a day?

FOR PRAYER:  Take time in prayer to examine the spirit behind each thought you have.  How would you name each of these spirits?  Is it a spirit of fear?  Of gratitude?  Of enthusiasm?  Of anxiety?  Of self-pity?  Of  trust? etc.

I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your statutes.
                                                                                             Psalm 119:59

Gordon T. Smith has written much about vocation and discerning God’s call on our lives.  In a recent interview for Regent College he recommends six questions that we should ask ourselves before we begin a process of discernment, especially one that is related to our vocation.

The first question is: What on earth is God doing?  Before we discern personal matters it is important to remind ourselves of the larger context we find ourselves in.  In Smith’s words, we need to remember that “the Creator and Redeemer of all things is always at work in our world, and in history.”  In other words, when we consider the question of what God is doing in our personal lives we should always do so in the context of God’s overall purposes in the world.

The second question is: Who am I?, This is not something we can always presume to know.  As Smith notes, “For many people the biggest obstacle to vocational discernment is their lack of self-knowledge.”  He adds, “Self-knowledge is the essential precursor to vocational discernment, for God’s calling in your life will always be consistent with how God made you.”  An accurate knowledge of self helps us to more realistically accept who we are, and who we are called to be. As Smith notes, “It is a mark of humility and freedom to be able to say, ‘This is who I am and I do not wish to be anybody other than who I am before God’.”

The third question asks: At what stage of life are you at?  Our vocation is something that  evolves slowly throughout our lives.  A person in their twenties or a person in their forties or sixties will discern God’s call differently.  At every stage of life it is important to accept both the opportunities and limitations of our age.  For some this will require patience.  It is unrealistic, for instance, to presume you should be further along in your vocation or in your spiritual growth than you actually are.  For others, it will require a healthy acceptance that we are no longer called to respond to life in the same ways we used to be.

Related to this is the question: What are your circumstances?  As we ask this of ourselves Smith counsels that,

• The crucial thing is to name your present reality in a hope-filled way. Not nostalgically, not regretfully, but to realize that your vocation is always historically located.

Vocation grows out of the reality of who and where you presently are.  You cannot go back to a previous starting point, nor can you fast-forward to the future.  Discernment is simply asking the Lord, at every stage of life, “Where do we go from here?”

Gordon Smith’s fifth question is: What is the cross you have been called to bear?  Responding to our vocation inevitably requires exchanging other life-options in order to grow into the precious pearl of our “name in Christ.” What are you called to “leave” before you can “cleave” to your new creation? Perhaps it is letting go of your own cherished ideals or imagined futures that represent some of the crosses you must bear in becoming who you truly are in Christ.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is the question: What are you afraid of? As Smith  notes, “The greatest obstacles to fulfilling your vocation are usually internal, not external.”  We fear failure.  But we also fear success, especially the change and risk that it implies.  Once we have named such fears in our discernment we can more intentionally choose whether to let them dictate our spiritual direction or not.

These six questions help create a stable platform from which to seek God in the disposition of our lives.  We can then apply the wisdom of discernment to the actual life we are living, rather than to the idealized one we might otherwise be chasing.

-St. Ignatius of Loyola

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

Take time to write out your answers to these six questions as related to your present circumstances.

1. What on earth is God doing?  How do you see your present circumstances as related to God’s purposes in the world and in history?
2. Who am I?  How easy is it for you to say, “This is who I am and I do not wish to be anybody other than who I am before God?
3. At what stage of life am I at?  How has your relationship to your vocation evolved over the years? Do you feel impatient with the slow progress of your life?
4. What are my circumstances?  How do your present circumstances relate to where God might be leading you next? Does knowing this help you name your present reality in a hope-filled way?
5. What is the cross I have been called to bear?  What cherished dreams might you have to let go of in order to become who you truly are in Christ?  What do you need to “leave” in order to “cleave” to your new creation?  What are some other crosses you are being called to bear at this time?
6. What am I afraid of?  What fears prevent you from moving in the direction of your vocation?  How can you acknowledge these fears as a way of not letting them overly determine your spiritual direction?

If you are in a group, share your answers to these questions with one another.

FOR PRAYER:  Pray that you (as well as others in your group) might come to a place of assurance, knowing and accepting that you are where God has placed you.  Express your faith that wherever the Lord might lead you next will grow out of this present reality.

“As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved”.    Gen. 43:23

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Joseph is sold to slave traders by his brothers.  But by the grace of God, he becomes the chief administrator of Egypt at a time when there is a great famine in the land.  Because of Joseph’s foresight, Egypt is the only nation that has a stockpile of grain which it now feeds itself on, as well as sells to foreigners.  Joseph’s father Jacob sends Joseph’s brothers to buy grain from the chief administrator, not realizing that this is the very brother they sold to slavery years ago.  During their interview with Joseph they mention  they have another brother, Benjamin, a favourite son of Jacob’s because he especially loved his mother Rachel, who was also Joseph’s mother. The brothers are given grain but Joseph tells them they will not see his face again unless they bring Benjamin with them.

The famine is severe throughout the region and Gen. 43:2 tells us that “when they had eaten all the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, ‘Go back and buy us a little more food.’”  The sons remind Jacob that the condition of their return is to bring their brother Benjamin with them which Jacob is reluctant to do, having presumably already lost his son Joseph.  After much deliberation, the patriarch resigns himself to the potential loss of his other beloved son saying “if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.”  He is in a precarious position.  His fate rests in the hands of another and he has no choice but to place himself at the mercy of this narrative.

It is a position we often find ourselves in as well—times when we must totally trust God in situations that could easily work against our favour.  Like Jacob, we recognize that the outcome is totally in God’s hands.  And in the acknowledgement of that truth we somehow find faith to accept the notion that “if I lose, I lose.”

Such faith has many applications in life.  Perhaps it is the fear of rejection where, as you approach your vulnerable moment, you must be reconciled that, “If they reject me, they reject me.”  Or perhaps it is the fear of perfectionism that must be countered by the courage to say, “If I fail, I fail.”  Or maybe it is death itself that you must inevitably approach saying “if I die, I die.”  We hear something of this disposition in Queen Esther who, feeling trepidation in having to ask the king’s mercy for her people, bravely accepts that, “If I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:16)

Such statements might seem more like resignation or fatalism than faith, but there is great wisdom in this disposition.  Our prior acceptance of the worst case scenario allows us to move forward according to a more pure faith in God, rather than one restricted only to our hopes.  It asserts faith regardless of consequences.  “If I fail, I fail.” “If they fire me, they fire me.” “If they don’t like me, they don’t like me.” “If I suffer loss, I suffer loss.” These are all empowering statements that help us move forward as we accept the uncertain outcome of situations we have no control over.

As we embrace the unknowns of our circumstances, and the very real possibility of a worst-case scenario, we disarm the enemy of his greatest weapon against us—our own fear of undesired outcomes.  We are then left with a more pure faith that now trusts God even in those precarious situations of life where things can truly go either way. No longer paralyzed by the fear of failure or of harm, we throw ourselves into God’s hands, trusting that His mercy will continue to be with us even if the outcome is not as we had hoped.  Into His hands we commit our spirits.  And, in so doing, we are free.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. What difference do you see between the faith that says, “I trust God that this or that will happen,” or one that simply says “I trust God no matter what?”  What do we have to let go of in order to grow from the one posture to the other?

2. Which of the following statements do you struggle with most?  “If I lose, I lose.”  “If they reject me, they reject me.” “I I fail, I fail.”  “If I die, I die.”

3. How does faith transform such statements from resignation into something that is more honouring to God, and more empowering to us?

FOR PRAYER:  Apply any one of the statements in Question #2 to a particular situation where you feel resistance to this posture.  Talk to God about your fear and ask the Spirit to give you faith, especially in relationship to your worst-case scenario.

The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.   Ex. 33:9

I have had many roles to play in the upbringing of my three children, from diaper-changer, to play-mate, to provider, to teacher and encourager.  My children have, and continue to bring forth many facets of who I am to them.  But my role in their lives these days (other than being the fount of way too much unsolicited advice J) has been mostly reduced to one simple facet—I feel more like a friend to them than a parent.

We see something similar in the unique relationship that our Father has had with individuals throughout Scripture—people like Moses to whom the Lord spoke “face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.”  Abraham as well is referred to as God’s friend (Isa. 41:8).  It is a relationship that the Lord seeks with each one of us as well.  What the prophet Samuel says of David applies to everyone: “The Lord has sought for Himself a man (or woman) after His own heart” (1Sam 13:14).  The invitation to be God’s friend  should be the desire and hope of every Christian.  But what exactly does this mean, and how are we to grow in this?

Friendship is the fruit of a shared life.  When you first meet someone there is no telling whether this relationship will grow or not.  Sometimes we might wish to pursue a friendship with someone but it never amounts to more than a casual acquaintance.  With other people, just the fact of sharing a church, a workspace or a neighbourhood is enough to foster a recurring familiarity that breeds a lasting friendship, one that often continues long after we have changed churches, jobs or locations.  What is it that has made these relationships different from our more casual ones?  What are the affinities that have sustained our desire to go “deeper and longer” with these people?  How have the simple facts of proximity and repeated occasions for interaction contributed to the likelihood of a friendship forming?  And how do all these factors also encourage our growing friendship with God?

A friend is someone who knows you and your story well.  They have shared some deep experiences of life with you.  A friend is also someone you feel comfortable opening yourself up to.  The disclosure of our lives and the trust that is implied in sharing such details is the foundation of any true friendship.  So it is with God’s friendship with us.  As Jesus says in John 15:15,

• I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

Can we also say the same thing to Jesus—that “I call You my Friend, because I make everything known to You?”

To  “know and be known” by others is one of our deepest psychological needs.  According to Jesus, it is also one of the most important elements in our relationship with God.  The simple fact that you and the Lord know each other well and that you share all things with each other is what constitutes the difference between being a servant or a friend of Jesus.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. In what ways do you presently know God as a friend?  In what ways do you feel more like a servant, or like a child with a parent in this relationship?

2. What does it mean for you to be someone “after God’s own heart?”  What does that inspire in you?

3. Think of a close friend you have today and try to remember when you first met this person, not knowing at the time that they would become the friend they are to you today.  How did this relationship evolve?  How did you come to know and be known by this person?  What choices did you or your friend make to encourage this relationship to deepen?  How does this also apply to your relationship with God?

FOR PRAYER:  Express to God something of your desire to be His friend.  Value the opportunity that prayer offers you to become more familiar with each other.  Take time to share, as you would with a best friend, the intimacies of your life with Jesus—whatever you are thinking or feeling about yourself or your circumstances.

Truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.   
John 3:3

In her book, To Believe in Jesus, the Carmelite Abbess Ruth Burrows identifies three stages of nearness to God.  Using the story of Nicodemus’ night time visit with Jesus (Jn. 3) she speaks of our first coming to the Lord in the darkness of our own self-understanding.  We are then led through a period of disorientation that the Lord’s higher truth produces in us.  And finally, we come to a new orientation, the result of our now adopting God’s perspective more than our own.

Burrows describes the first stage as that of someone who, like Nicodemus, only knows Jesus from afar.  She writes,

• To begin with we have not yet ‘come’ to Jesus even though we are in His company and want to learn from Him.  Like Nicodemus we draw near to Jesus in our night of ignorance.  We make an act of faith that says, “We know that you are a teacher come from God.”

We want to go deeper with Jesus, but we have no idea how to approach Him, nor what to expect from this path.  We come in our night of ignorance and find that our encounter with Jesus only baffles us more.  As Burrows describes it,

• Jesus, in mysterious language, tries to make Nicodemus understand what must happen if he is to go further.  If he is to enter the kingdom, that sphere where God, not man, is in supreme control, where God gives and man receives, Nicodemus, must lay aside his own ideas and consent to become a child.  In other words, he must be born again, this time however from above.

Implied in the invitation to be born “from above” rather than “from below” is an exchange of creatorship—from the life we have made for ourselves to the one we can only receive from God.  And our willingness to enter this process of exchange is made more difficult the more we see the “self” that we have created as an accomplished one.  As Burrows notes,

• Nicodemus considers himself a virtuous, wise man and Jesus is telling him that his own wisdom and virtue will get him nowhere.  He is trapped in the flesh of his own creation, and such flesh, born “from below,” can never know the higher ways of God.

Nicodemus, in other words, has to let go of the limitations of his own self-understanding, which includes his limited understanding of God.  He has been trying to fit Jesus into the wineskin of his old preconceptions, and is not allowing God to reveal Himself afresh to him.  Before Nicodemus can enter the more mysterious creativity of God he needs to look beyond his own certainties.  As Burrows puts it,

• Jesus impresses on this great man his complete helplessness in the things of God.  You cannot control the wind nor predict its movements, neither are you in control of the Spirit.  If you are to be born “from above” you have to surrender to God’s Creatorship.

This is the path that leads to the third stage of nearness to God, and there are few who find it, few who will submit to its humbling.  As Burrows recognizes, “The gate is narrow, and to pass through it we must become small and unencumbered.”  She adds,

• For one who accepts this way of surrender, there follows a long and arduous discipleship.  Perfect transformation into Jesus does not take place all at once.  We must co-operate each day with the action of the Holy Spirit who now operates from within.

This is the third stage of nearness—the re-orientation whereby we now receive our lives more directly from God, who now operates more freely within us the more child-like we become.  Such has always been the intent for the creature’s relationship to the Creator.  For it is only from this submissive posture that we can know the light burden of a life received directly from God

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

1. In what ways do you identify with these three stages of nearness?  Are you in the “night of ignorance,” approaching Jesus according to your own preconceptions?  Are you in a phase of disorientation, knowing that the spiritual understanding and means you once used no longer seem to apply?  Or are you in a process of re-orientation where you find yourself more accepting of God’s direct creativity in your life?

2. What is required of you in order to be born “from above?”

3. How is trust related to our capacity to receive life more directly from God?  And how is humility related to our willingness to let God “create” us?

FOR PRAYER:  In your prayer offer yourself, child-like, to Jesus so that He can operate more freely in you the more trust you give Him to do so.

I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw.
Prov. 23:32

The end of the year is always a good time to look back and learn from decisions that either helped or hindered our passion for the Lord.  From the wisdom of hindsight, what might we learn from the ways we have observed ourselves growing (or not) over the past year?  And what adjustments might we consider in the coming year to ensure that we keep strong in our spiritual direction?

Consider the following Awareness Examen as applied to your spiritual growth over the past twelve months:

• What particular seasons of growth do you remember?  What were the dry times?
• What circumstances occasioned these experiences?  How did you respond to them?
• What has grown in you as a result of these dry or abundant times?
• What has been pruned as a result of these?
• What new or deeper desires do you now have that you didn’t have a year ago?
• What desires did you have then that don’t seem to be as pressing today?
• What do you know about God that you didn’t know a year ago?
• What do you know about yourself that you didn’t know a year ago?
• How is your relationship to others different than at this time last year?
• How can you apply what God has taught you about your own spiritual growth in the coming year?
• What choices will help you remain fruitful?

As you look back on the previous year make note as well of particular activities and choices that most significantly contributed to your spiritual passion and growth.  What insights, books, people or events helped fuel the flame of your zeal?  Consider as well the decisions or conditions that quenched your spiritual life—situations that either distracted or dissipated your spiritual passions.  As we “apply our heart” to what we have observed in the past year we can easily learn what adjustments will be needed in order to assure a more profitable future.

Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities

FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:

• Discuss together the questions above.
• Make resolutions for the coming year in light of your answers.
• Write these down and plan to revisit these resolutions together later in the year

FOR PRAYER:  Ask God for insight into the “garden” that is your life, that He would show you what grows well in you and whatever hinders your growth.  Offer yourself as “co-creator” with God of your own life, or as a servant who wishes to steward well the garden God has given you.

IMAGO DEI
Meditations for Spiritual Direction
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Luke 1:41
It happens at various points in our spiritual life that seeds are planted within us in the form of a profound experience of God. It might be an experience of being particularly loved by God, or perhaps a deep sense of peace that settles the soul. Or maybe it is a joy, somehow related to eternity, that fills our heart with new longings. Such epiphanies have the power to reset our lives. They change the course of our spiritual direction from one of searching for “I know not what,” to a more deliberate quest to return to that which “I have once tasted of God.”
Such seems to have been the case with John the Baptist. While still in his mother Elizabeth’s womb, John experienced a profound recognition of Christ which thereafter set the course of his adult life. In response to the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth exclaimed that the baby within her leapt for joy. This encounter precipitated an experience, for both mother and unborn child, of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Sensing the presence of Jesus in Mary’s womb, a Divine seed was planted in John’s fetal heart. Such a pre-natal memory likely determined the course of his future life and ministry. His destiny was now to search for the Messiah he had once met while still in his mother’s womb. It was given to this greatest of prophets the task of identifying, in the flesh, that which he had already known in his spirit
We have no records of Jesus and John the Baptist having any contact with each other in their upbringing. Though distantly related, John did not know Jesus by sight when he first met his Lord at the Jordan river. But though he did not know the face of the Messiah he was seeking, John was confident that he would somehow recognize Christ when he saw Him. His own heart would once again leap for joy, as it did over thirty years ago, in the Presence of his Lord.
As God graces our own lives with spiritual experiences, we too naturally seek to return to such places of encounter. Having tasted something of the Lord’s presence we now know that real encounter with God is possible. Such experiences, though fleeting, serve to authenticate what we otherwise can only hope is possible in the spiritual life. As a foretaste of the relationship that our hearts are meant to enjoy forever, they intensify our desires for God through the tangible memories they produce in us. No longer is our spiritual hope a matter of wishful thinking. We have tasted something of God and it has conceived in us a yearning to return to the Source of what remains so delectable in the soul’s memory. Advent, then, is both a longing for that which lies ahead of us as well as a desire to deepen what has already been revealed to us.
John the Baptist spent the rest of his life searching for the familiar knowledge of Christ that he once experienced in the womb. Perhaps the Lord has planted similar memories in our souls as well. As we grow in our knowledge of Christ, it is no wonder that this is often experienced as something already familiar—as though God had hidden an experience of Himself deep in our soul’s memory, knowing that, sooner or later, we would recognize it when we meet Him again.
You breathed fragrance, and I drew in my breath, and I now pant for you; I tasted and now I hunger and thirst; you touched me and now I burn for Your peace.
Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
FOR GROUP DISCUSSION:
1. Is there a spiritual experience (or more than one) in your life that has changed your quest from a searching for “I know not what” to a more intentional desire to return to that which “I have once tasted of God?”
2. How have you experienced (or how do you anticipate) your heart leaping for joy in recognition of the real presence of God?
3. Having tasted something of the Lord’s presence how has this intensified your desire for God? In what ways have you responded to this desire?
FOR PRAYER: Consider John the Baptist’s confidence that he would recognize, in his spirit, the Messiah when he encountered Him. Come to your prayer with a similar confidence that you too will recognize the familiarity of what you seek when you find Him.
Imago Dei Christian Community www.imagodeicommunity.ca To receive these weekly meditations by e-mail contact imago@shaw.ca.
Augustine, Confessions