in the heavens.
Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them? (Psalm 8:1-4 NIV)
Allow these words to be a springboard from which you leap into adoring God further, naming all that you admire and appreciate about him.
DAY 8
COMPANION
No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. (1 John 4:12 NLT)
My daughter, at age three, had a small crisis of faith. “I want to believe in Jesus,” she wailed with characteristic drama. “But I can’t feel him! I can’t see him!”
I nodded sympathetically, assuring her that many people wondered the same thing; it was normal and acceptable to question and wonder. Prayers for parenting wisdom brought this thought to my mind, which I shared with her. “Jesus gave us each other,” I said, taking her in my arms. “When you feel my hugs, when I take care of you, that’s how he loves you. That’s how he shows you how he loves you.”
She looked skeptical at what I thought was brilliant theology. Although she continues, as a teenager, to ask tough questions of God, she does so from a place of deep faith. She recently told me she doesn’t doubt God’s existence anymore, and gets a little impatient with those who do. I told her the story of her preschool existential angst and asked her to be patient with the rest of us while we catch up.
While we can certainly feel the love of God stirring in our hearts, one of the ways he lets us know we are deeply loved is by loving us through others.
Psychologist and author David Benner writes, “The hunger for connection is one of the most fundamental desires of the human heart… . But it is not just connections in general that we seek. In the core of our being we yearn for intimacy. We want people to share our lives. We want soul friends.”
Isn’t that longing part of the reason you picked up this book to begin with? You long to be deeply loved, specifically and intimately. And yet, intimacy (whether with another person or with Jesus) also terrifies us because of two things: it exposes us and it asks something of us.
Spiritual friendship is simply a relationship in which we agree with another to talk about our spiritual life. We cannot find such a friend by only focusing on our needs. Instead, seek reciprocity— a relationship that allows us both to be filled and to overflow into someone else’s life.
In the opening chapters of Genesis, God declares, “Let us create man in our own image.” A puzzling pronoun, “us,” as if conferring with a committee. The verbiage provides a glimpse of the community of the Trinity. The image we bear is one of community: Father, Son, Spirit.
In those same pages, all created was declared “good.” Only one thing, at least before the fall, was labeled “not good.” Simply this: “It is not good for man to be alone.” We are relational beings, made to be connected to God and one another.
We were made to be supported, loved, chastised, encouraged, and confronted—by other people. We thrive when we receive and then give back those same things to others. In other words, you were created to love and to be loved. So often, we settle for pseudocommunity, empty fellowship in which we dare not tell the truth about ourselves. Worse, we remain unwilling to let others tell us the truth about both the strengths and weaknesses they see in us.
Further, life change happens best in community. God designed you to live the Christian life in connection with others. God desires to show you the full extent of his love, at times, through other people. You are a part of his body, which means engaging in community is not optional. It is one way we can truly experience being deeply loved.
Community gets messy. Trying to maintain order, we hold friendships (or small groups) at the surface, fearful yet dissatisfied. In so doing, we miss out on relationships that could be a catalyst for growth in our lives.
PRESENCE PRACTICE
The first step to finding a spiritual friendship or “soul friend” might seem counterintuitive: begin by spending time alone.
Bring a sheet of paper or journal into this time, but nothing else—your goal is to listen. Quiet yourself, ask Jesus to simply be with you as you sit quietly, resting in his presence. Think back over the last year or so. When was a time that you felt loved or encouraged by another person? When was a time when someone was “Jesus with skin on” to you? Ask Jesus to bring people or situations to mind and simply begin to list them in your journal without editing or judging.
Once you have two or three names, ask this question: in which of these friends is there potential to go deeper? Which of them would respond positively to a simple request to include sharing about your spiritual life in your interactions? Who encourages you? You are not looking for a mentor but a companion, so your focus should be on the relationships in your life that you’d classify as reciprocal or even.
Sit quietly; listen. Continue to be open to Jesus bringing other people to mind or affirming someone on your list.
Pray for one person on your list. Then, invite them to get together for a cup of coffee or whatever.
When you get together, simply say, “I’d really like to take a couple of my friendships to a deeper place, and I think our friendship has that potential. I’m wondering if you’d be open to making our friendship one where we can talk honestly about our spiritual lives?”
Let things evolve from there—don’t rush it. Let God direct and lead.
DAY 9
ALONE
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” (Mark 1:35-37 NIV)
The wooden structure clinging tenuously to the back of our house is a sorry excuse for a deck. Some of the boards are spongy. The railing does not resist when you pick at it with a fingernail—fragments soft and splintery come away. In one corner, a bright green moss spiked with red stamens grows next to a grease stain from the grill.
Still, this crumbling platform is a sanctuary. Especially on a fall morning, when the sun plays in the curtain of weeping willow branches along the fence line, and the squirrels chatter as they chase one another along the intricate paths of the small wood behind the house. Far off, I can hear the whir of traffic noise, muted by the birdsong that fills the trees a few feet away.
Here, on this rustic, rotting deck, peace finds me, noses my hand like a dog insisting on being stroked. I jot notes in a journal on my lap. Coffee steams strong and fragrant in a well-used mug on the picnic table. I escape, if only to a spot a few feet from my family and the endless household chores that demand my attention. My only goal is to find a piece of quiet, a few moments’ respite before plunging headlong into my day as a working mom.