After Second Awakening what? Advancing in your spiritual journey

Continued from previous posts The fourth stage in the spiritual journey will carry you deeper into your heart. At Stage Four, you're invited by the Holy Spirit to turn inward in order to awaken to the depth of interior intimacy with the Holy Trinity. This doesn't mean you've not tasted God until now. But it does mean that your relationship is moving to a different level. At this stage, you're discovering God all over again. I wrote extensively about this stage last month's newsletter.

Stage Four, "Second Awakening," is a deepening of your experience of the presence of God, but that doesn't mean it's easy. As in any relationship, there are real challenges as the relationship matures. You are not yet who God's destined you to be and God is different from what you once thought God to be.

This tension can cause disillusionment with God, church, and yourself.

Disillusionment with God doesn't mean God is insufficient or the church is failing you; it means, rather, that you must change, and change doesn't come easily because you are now coming face to face with the impediments that stand between you and the God who loves you.

In the posts that follow, I'll describe an experience you will inevitably have at some point as you move through your "Second Awakening."

to be continued . . .

Still more on stage four: it may seem like you're losing faith

In these last few posts I'm describing the fourth stage of spiritual growth. It's a stage of profound growth that requires competent spiritual guidance. The loosening of old certainties is not a loss of your faith, but an invitation toward deeper, though different conviction. Your search for direction and meaning in life doesn't need to lead you away from the church but can lead you into a deeper life of faith. Your disillusionment with God or religion isn't a sign of their insufficiency or failure; rather, it signals the necessary break from static attachments and religiosity so that you can open up to a new experience of spiritual abundance through faith. This, in turn, leads you to new expressions of service that flow from inextinguishable inner resources rather than from the shoulds and oughts of duty or obligation, or the zeal of newfound enthusiasm.

Along this path, you'll need the guidance of a soul friend to help you keep your bearings.

To be continued . . .

More on stage four: discovering God all over again

In my last post, I wrote that most churches place stage three, "Service and Leadership" at the pinnacle of the Christian life. But if you've followed this series of posts, you'll know that stage three is not even half way along the path of what historic Christianity has understood to be the path to spiritual maturity. That journey leads from First Awakening, through Believing and Belonging, and into Service and Leadership. But it doesn't end there. There comes a point when the Holy Spirit invites a disciple to turn inward again in order to awaken to the depths of interior intimacy with the Holy Trinity.

It's a stage of discovering God all over again.

Sadly, without direction and insight, many who experience this invitation to the deeper life believe instead that they're losing their faith; they become disillusioned with God or they blame the church for not meeting their needs.

To be continued . . .

Moving beyond stage three: "Service and Leadership"

Continued from previous posts: In many churches this stage is the pinnacle of the Christian life. In fact, popular books like "The Purpose Driven Life" make it sound like this stage is the goal of the Christian life. Unfamiliar with the history of Christian spirituality and growth, popular movements mistakenly bring Christians to stage three and leave them there. But there are four more stages, and unless disciples are aware of them, what can be a new awakening to faith becomes a debilitating crisis.

The next stage, stage four in Christian growth, is what I call "The Second Awakening." It is a stage of profound growth, but is often misunderstood. Those who've served long and faithfully come to the point where they ask, "Isn't there something more?" And if they don't know that this new search is a sign of the Holy Spirit's nudging them to a deepening of their faith experience, they may grow frustrated with their faith and drop out of church; sometimes they abandon their faith entirely. But this is just the beginning of a holy new movement of grace in their lives.

To be continued . . .

How to have something worth saying

I don't think I have anything worthwhile to say unless it comes out of the deep silence.