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