It’s not Christmas yet. 

Despite what the malls, the radio stations and many churches have to say, we’re still in the season of Advent. 

Advent is a critical component of our lives as Christians because it is the season wherein we’re called to intentionally wait, to live with emptiness, and to wrestle with the “not yet”.  It is a time for us to structure our lives around anticipation of what is still to come, and it’s a reminder that God is still at work in our world. 

Children understand Advent better than most adults.  They know what it means to live in expectation of Christmas day, and they know what it feels like to yearn for something.  Kids also understand that a big part of waiting is wondering – they love to poke around at wrapped gifts, to imagine what incredible surprises are hiding beneath the bows, and to dream about the mysteries of the unknown.  For them, the ‘not-yet’ is tantalizing; anticipation opens up an entire world of possibility that most of us have learned to ignore.

Advent is hard work – it doesn’t just happen by itself – but it is a valuable discipline that forms us into spiritual maturity.

Is the rest of the world trying to push you to Christmas too soon?  Have you longed for the joy of Christmas yet this December, or have you skipped over the hard work of waiting?

Do you remember what a metaphor is?  In 3rd grade you should have learned that a metaphor is a literary device that describes something in terms of something else: “Love is a rose”, “The sun smiled at me”, “Life is like a box of chocolates”, and so on. 

Most of us communicate with metaphors without ever realizing it.  For example, when you use phrases like, “I didn’t spend enough time studying”, or “I wasted too much time today”, or “Save time by taking a shortcut”, you are invoking a metaphor.  Time, of course, isn’t a physical object that can be collected, amassed, or divested.  Instead, all of these phrases are actually based on a root metaphor that presents the concept of time via the concept of money. 

Metaphors emphasize some things, but they also hide other things.  So, on the one hand, our time/money metaphor clearly stresses that your use of time can be productive or unproductive, and that careful thought must be given to what activities you should tackle.   But on the other hand, the time/money metaphor ignores the fact that everybody experiences time in exactly the same way – everyone has 24 hours each day, and nobody can “spend” and extra amount of it. Extra time can’t be bought or sold, and the ownership of time is not slanted toward the rich and the powerful. 

So – if I haven’t lost you already – what metaphors do you use to think about spiritual formation?  I’ll bet you’ve never really thought about it, have you?  To get you started, I’ll give you three primary metaphors that I hear over and over used to describe spirituality:

• Metaphor of organic growth.  For example – “The fruits of the Spirit”, “My joy has withered away over the years”, “Her sermon planted seeds in my heart”.
• Metaphor of a journey.  For example – “I had a mountain-top experience”, “I’m in a dark place”, “I’ve been wandering in the desert”, “She has a lot of baggage”.
• Metaphor of death and resurrection.  For example – “I feel reborn”, “My old habits are dying away”, “My heart feels lifeless”.  The Apostle Paul also used this metaphor a lot – “I have been crucified with Christ, and it no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2), “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8).

Do you recognize any of these metaphors from your own life?  Perhaps you’ve primarily found the journey metaphor useful for describing your spirit – but now you feel lost.  Or maybe you’ve typically tended towards the organic growth metaphor – but lately you’ve been feeling a bit barren.  Whatever metaphor you feel most comfortable with, I want to challenge you with this question – is your metaphor hiding something from you?  Since every metaphor always downplays some aspect of reality – and spiritual formation is a complex, multi-faceted experience that is difficult to reduce to a single perspective – have you been tricked into thinking there’s only one way to live out your spirituality?

Maybe you are feeling barren because you’ve forgotten that you are more than just a tree – you’re more than a home to birds or a cool, shady place for the neighborhood kids to gather.  What would happen if you ripped your roots out of the earth and pruned back some of that overgrowth?  What would your life look like if you dumped the dead weight and struck out on an adventure with nothing but high hopes for where you’ll end up?

Maybe you are feeling lost because you’ve forgotten life doesn’t always need a map – doesn’t your corporate job keep you going-going-going and climbing enough ladders already?  Why not stop moving for a season, take a risk, throw some seeds in the ground and see what comes up?  Why not sit still long enough to allow thick, mossy growth to sprout up and envelop you with a rich web of peace?

Maybe you’re feeling dead inside and have been trying to roll away the stone from the mouth of the tomb for too long – why not pull the covers off your ears long enough to hear Jesus call out, “Lazarus, come forth!”  What if you began to notice that lifelessness always warms up into springtime, or that hope may very well be waiting to surprise you just around the next corner?

Try on a new metaphor today; you may be surprised at what you’ve been missing.

Does spiritual formation ever end?

If you’ve read any of my earlier entries, you’d probably imagine that I’d answer “No”.  After all, spiritual formation is the process – maybe even the lifelong process – of becoming the people God is calling us to be. 

But if it never ends, and if there’s no goal in sight, much less any possibility of achieving that goal, why even bother? 

I love honest questions – and this is one of those brutally honest questions that strikes at the heart of the Christian life:  why subject yourself to the pain, the stress, the tears and the risk of perpetual discipleship if it leads you on a journey that never ends?  Why run a race if there is no finish line?  Why bear fruit if it will never be harvested?

Most Christians are afraid to ask these kinds of question because good girls and boys don’t dare say such things. Typically the message from the Church (with a big “C”; not any individual church) is to ‘just do it’ – keep worshipping, keep tithing, keep praying, and keep trying – and if you don’t, well, then you need to repent.  But this message is also typically coded with the tacit assumption that all of the ‘doing’ doesn’t really lead us anywhere – that our spiritual growth will always be unfinished, incomplete, and in-process.  Does this sound like a catch-22 to anybody else but me?

This perpetual unfinishedness is woven deeply into the fabric of our culture as a Church.  (It takes most church committees over a year to choose carpet colors, right?)  I’ve seen evidence of this time and again in churches all over the country – “Well, we want to launch this ministry, or we want to serve this group of people, or we want to reach out to so-and-so ….  But we’re not ready.”  They don’t know enough Bible.   They haven’t attended the right leadership seminar yet.  They haven’t given the steering committee enough time to gather feedback from church members.  They don’t feel spiritually ‘formed’ enough.

Here’s another brutally honest question – Is your concept of spiritual growth holding you back from spiritual growth? 

(And yes, this entry is supposed to feel a little ‘unfinished’…..)