HE ROLLED DOWN THE WINDOW as he sped with his family down the street in front of our church. He raised his hand to his face, thumb to nose, and waved four fingers back and forth in front of his eyes as he launched in our direction a universal gesture of disgust and disrespect.
Shortly thereafter I listened intently as his daughter described his action to me. It would not have bothered me quite so much had he not been one of our deacons. How could a spiritual leader act so immaturely? He was a deacon but he was not a spiritual leader.
I would like to say he was already on the deacon board when I came to pastor the church. But he was not. He was one of the first new wave of deacons selected under my leadership. During the next year, our deacon body struggled. Votes were split six to eight or five to nine. One evening I got so frustrated I called for a halt: “I propose we cease all deacons’ meetings while I do an intensive study on New Testament church organization and leadership. I will report back in six months.”
I was surprised at the unanimous response to my proposal. No one else was having much fun either.
My study precipitated numerous changes in our church structure, but my most significant personal conclusion was that unspiritual people could never lead a church spiritually. Simply put, spiritual people hear God best. Our church was organized to select deacons and leaders. However, there was no machinery in place to ensure that the people selected were spiritually mature. I concluded that spiritual people became spiritual because they invested heavily in cultivating their inner human spirits.
It is easier to be smart and well-refined than it is to be spiritual. I know that spiritual maturity does not occur automatically. A well-functioning inner spirit must be cultivated. Paul prayed often for the inner spiritual development of his charges. For example, he told the Ephesians: “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that … you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (3:16-19).
During this time, I developed a model for cultivating my inner spirit. It’s all too easy for pastors, as well as laypeople, to stay immature spiritually. Here is my model for being filled to the measure of all the fullness of God:
1. Practice the disciplines. I never knew spiritual disciplines formally existed until I read Richard Foster’s book The Celebration of Discipline.1 He details the activities that have brought spiritual growth and cultivation of the inner spirit to the faithful for two thousand years. I discovered I already practiced several disciplines, such as prayer, service, worship, submission, confession, study, and celebration. Several others, however, were not part of my everyday Christian experience: meditation, fasting, simplicity, solitude, and guidance. I vowed to implement these into my life.
For example, I decided to practice fasting. I learned that fasting is abstaining from food for spiritual purposes. A normal fast involves abstaining from all foods, but not from water (liquids). An absolute fast, no food or water, is reserved for extreme circumstances and never lasts more than three days except by supernatural empowerment. Of course, people with medical problems need to check with their doctors before beginning to fast.
I discovered the Bible reveals various reasons for fasting: I fast when I want to know God’s will—such as whether to hire a new staff member or to relocate the church (Acts 13:2). I fast before long, dangerous journeys—mission trips to the Ukraine or Turkey (Ezra 8:21-23). I fast to humble myself before God—when I am overcome with pride, selfish ambition, or a spirit of competition (Deuteronomy 8:2-14). I fast when I want to get God’s attention—such as when my daughter was dying (Joel 2:12; 1 Kings 21:20-29; and 2 Samuel 12:22-23). I fast when I need to overcome a stronghold in my life—such as overeating (Isaiah 58:6). I fast for protection and physical safety—such as before I had my colon removed (Esther 4:15-16). I fast to enhance my worship of God—on Saturdays before Sunday services (Luke 2:37).
I began with a one-meal fast and gradually increased to fasts of three days or longer. Normally I fast for either twenty-four hours or for three days, depending on what I sense to be the prompting of the Holy Spirit. I learned not to begin with a long fast. The body grows accustomed to fasting by degrees. Arthur Wallis’s book God’s Chosen Fast was a helpful resource in learning about this spiritual discipline.2
2. Listen deep in the inner spirit. Julie and I used to select a spiritual subject or biblical topic to study while on vacation. (Unfortunately, the practice died out when our children arrived.) We were inching along in a rental car through a construction zone outside of Pittsburgh, when Julie looked at me and said, “We haven’t picked a subject for this vacation. What do you want to study?”
I had nothing in mind, so I was pleased when she continued.
“Have you ever heard a sermon on the human spirit?”. she asked. “The Bible has a lot to say about body, soul, and spirit. Do you know the difference between a soul and a spirit?”
“No, I have never heard a sermon on that, and no, I don’t know the difference between a soul and a spirit.”
We had our vacation study subject. We were intrigued by Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 14:15, “I will pray with my spirit … [and] with my mind; I will sing with my spirit … [and] with my mind.” And in 1 Corinthians 2:10-13, Paul describes how the Holy Spirit expresses spiritual words to our inner, human spirit. Our summer study led toward a deeper intimacy with God as we began to cultivate the art of listening for God to communicate with us—Holy Spirit to human spirit. We discovered the human spirit is our organ for God-consciousness and the seat of our communion with God, where he longs to minister to and fellowship with us.
Listening for the voice of God in my inner spirit was not easy at first. I had to learn to quiet my mind if I were to hear the “still, small voice.” My mind was active and undisciplined. There were too many things I wanted to think about.
The human brain operates at different speeds. In deep sleep, the brain slows to zero to three cycles per second (the delta wave). The brain moves toward increasing levels of wakefulness at four to seven cycles per second (the theta wave). The alpha wave, eight to thirteen cycles per second, is best for creativity and contemplation—such as for communing with God and hearing God speak. Most Americans, however, spend the bulk of their waking hours in the more rapid beta-wave level of brain activity. This speed, fourteen to twenty-five cycles per second, is perfectly suited for baking casseroles, going to meetings, and solving problems. Unfortunately, it is possible to live at even faster levels of brain intensity. As the cycles increase, we find ourselves in hassled, hurried, frenzied states of mind. I am convinced much of my struggle in learning to hear God speak resulted from a fast-paced life in a rapid-fire, imagery-oriented society, which tended to overload my mental circuits and distract me from hearing the voice of God, just as surely as massive radio jamming kept the Gospel out of many Communist countries during the cold war.
The first time I tried to slow down my mind and sit quietly before God, I found my thoughts wandered everywhere. Hearing God’s still, small voice was well nigh impossible when thinking about tomorrow’s lunch appointment, or next Sunday’s sermon, or the balance in my checkbook, or Deacon Smith’s surgery that I forgot. I could travel from my driveway to the rings of Saturn in seconds. I had to acquire new skills to focus my listening habits. So I practiced taking my runaway thoughts “captive” as Paul encourages in 2 Corinthians 10:5. Two things helped as I learned to meditate.
First, I set aside time to quiet down and make a conscious choice to calm my soul. When I was in college, Julie challenged me to memorize Psalm 131 in the Revised Standard Version. It is one of the Songs of Ascents that lead to the worship of God. David wrote:
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a child quieted at its mother’s
breast;
like a child that is quieted is my soul.
I noted that David had a choice. And so did I. He could let his mind run away if he wanted to, or he could quiet his mind and not worry about all the big issues that bombarded his life. So could I.
Second, I utilized Madame Guyon’s guidelines for quieting the mind in Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ.3 She recommended focusing on a Bible passage (such as Psalm 23) or meditating on a comforting image of Christ (such as the Lord ministering to the woman caught in the act of adultery in John 8). At first I was able to sit quietly only for minutes at a time. Soon minutes turned into quarter-hours, then half-hours, and occasionally hours. I learned to concentrate and pray slowly through the Scriptures or meditate on Christ until my mind was sufficiently settled. Then I listened for God’s Spirit to speak deep within.
I believe this is a small part of what Paul meant when he discussed “praying in his spirit.” I pray with my mind by working through a prayer list and by consciously praying for the things I know need prayer. Then, when the list is complete, I quiet my mind and seek to commune with God in my spirit. I listen for God’s voice and sense his promptings to pray for people and for situations that would normally never come to my mind. My most precious experiences occur when God speaks by his Holy Spirit to my human spirit.
Once I began to control my mind, I found I no longer needed to find a special place or dedicate a formal time to commune with God. I could do it anytime, anywhere. A heated church business meeting put my ability to hear God anywhere to the test. The fight centered on whether to buy inexpensive wooden baby cribs or to purchase the more expensive, easier-to-clean, and longer-lasting metal ones. My anxiety increased as the arguing continued and the tension rose.
If I could find inner peace with God in that mess, I could enjoy God anywhere. I mentally disengaged from the heated discussion and sought the Spirit of God deep within. The peace was comforting as the storm swirled and God and I communed Holy Spirit to human spirit.
3. Obey God’s promptings. When I sense God speaking, I am careful to obey him. Each time I do, I believe my spirit is strengthened and matured, and I am better equipped to hear again. On the other hand, it I refuse to obey, my spirit shrivels and darkens, and it becomes harder to hear.
Responding favorably to God begins with following my conscience. When I was a boy, I heard many sermons on the sinfulness of smoking, drinking, and dancing. Were these teachings biblical? Not necessarily. But they were acceptable Baptist theology in the days of my youth. Being a good Baptist, I never smoked, drank, or learned to dance.
In my ninth grade year, I was nominated for home-coming king in junior high school. The winner was to be announced at an all-school dance where the new king and queen danced the first dance of the evening.
I struggled with my conscience all week: Should I go to the dance? I was taught that a good Baptist, especially one called to preach, would not even attend a dance. Surely it could not be so bad just to go. But what if I won? Should I take the queen in my arms and try to dance the first dance—or politely decline and stammer out some explanation about how good Christians don’t dance? What I needed was a good case of the flu or the throw-up virus or a broken leg or something to give me a good excuse not to attend. But Saturday came and I was healthy and intact, so I stifled my screaming conscience, put on my best suit, and went to the dance. I may have been the only homecoming nominee in America that year who pleaded with God to lose. I was horrified when my name was announced as king. The music began and the new queen and I were ushered onto the dance floor. Everything happened so fast. The teachers were smiling, and the students were clapping.
But I could not dance—partly because I was not sure how, and mostly because my raging conscience told me I was on the verge of committing a sin and ruining my testimony for Jesus Christ. I stammered out some half-whispered statement that good Baptists don’t dance and walked off the floor. One of the teachers asked another nominee to dance in my place, and the party went on.
A conscience is a delicate thing. One of God’s internal tools, a conscience is implanted by God to give general direction concerning right and wrong. But the values, moral truths, and rules a society shares and agrees to live by also shape many of the specifics in the conscience. From a biblical point of view, a strong conscience is trained to align closely with biblical truth. A weak conscience is one filled with all sorts of traditions, ideas, and customs taught to be biblical but that have little to do with the revealed Word of God.
The pastor, church leaders, and teachers at whose feet I sat for my most formative years, infused into my life and conscience many powerful biblical concepts. Nevertheless, as happens in all church settings, they also built into my life some church traditions and expectations that weakened—instead of strengthened—my conscience. The Bible condemns the misuse of alcohol, not its consumption. (Of course, it needs to be pointed out, especially in our society, that the misuse of alcohol has brought devastation to many.) Smoking is not mentioned in the Bible. Dancing is portrayed in the Scriptures as a normal activity useful in both worship and human socialization. My conscience was trained to believe these were all sins. In these areas, my conscience was weak.
In Romans 14, Paul discussed the issue of meat offered to idols. Christians with strong consciences realized no sin was involved, so Paul encouraged them to eat the meat. On the other hand, those with weak consciences believed that eating the meat was sinful, so Paul counseled them to follow their consciences and not eat. God expected them to follow the inner promptings of their consciences even if they were poorly trained—so critical is a positive response to the promptings deep within. Of course, God did not intend for them to live all of their lives with weak consciences. He intended for them to retrain and strengthen their consciences in areas where they were weak.
While I am now convinced there is nothing wrong with dancing—my conscience is retrained and more closely aligned with biblical truth—I was right not to dance that night. I would have sinned by sweeping the queen off her feet, violating my conscience. Paul’s comment in Romans 14:23, “The man who has doubts is condemned if he eats,” explains how the same activity can be a sin for one person and not for another. My wife grew up in a Baptist church across town from me. Her pastor never made dancing a test of biblical Christianity, and thus she danced her way through school without sinning (and probably had a lot more fun than I did!).
In cultivating my inner spirit, I try always to follow the promptings of my conscience. Of course, the conscience is only one small part of the inner workings of my spirit. Therefore, whenever I sense God speaking anywhere in my inner being, I intend to respond favorably. I mature my spirit and thus improve my ability to hear him speak by doing what God leads me to do. I hurt my spirit when I disobey or refuse.
One-sentence sermon
About thirty minutes into our weekly Saturday night prayer meeting, I heard a quiet voice inside say, Roger, instead of preaching your sermon in the morning I want you to walk to the pulpit and say, “It is not possible to be content with your sins and really be a Christian.” Then turn and walk off the platform.
I paused. That was a funny thought. Then I went back to praying. About ten minutes later, the voice returned. Roger, in the morning, I want you to walk to the pulpit and say, “It is not possible to be content with your sins and really be a Christian.” Then turn and walk off the platform. The second time got my attention, and I began struggling: Was that God speaking to me? Or did I just make this up? Or was it some sort of satanic temptation to do something stupid?
Later, when the prayer meeting was over and everyone had left our house, I sat down with Julie and told her, “I just had the strangest thing happen to me.”
Julie listened carefully, and when I finished, her first words were “You’re not really going to do that, are you?”
“I don’t know. My sermon’s ready. It’s not like I’m unprepared. If I get up and say just one sentence, the people are going to think I’m nuts.”
“You’d better be careful. You could lose your job over something like this.”
“I know.”
The next morning Julie’s first words were “You’re not really going to do that, are you?”
After spending time in prayer, I felt convinced God was speaking. However, I love to preach; I could not think of many things more humiliating than to stand behind a pulpit and, before God and the people, do a strange thing.
Early that morning I gathered with our ministers for prayer. As I prepared to tell them what I intended to do, God said, No. You may not tell them anything about this.
The first service commenced. The hymns were sung, the offering was taken, the special music was completed, and it was my turn to preach. I walked to the pulpit, took a deep breath, and spoke right into the microphone: “It is not possible to be content with your sins and really be a Christian.” Then I turned and walked off the platform. As I passed the worship leader, he whispered, “Where are you going? Where are you going?”
I had no freedom to tell. This was between God and me, alone.
I walked down the steps, out the door, around the side of the church, back to my office; opened the door, went inside, locked the door, got down on my knees and wept: “God, how could you do this to me? God, this is so humiliating. I can’t believe you made me do this. They are going to think I’m nuts. I’m going to get fired.”
Things were not much better back in the worship service. Pandemonium was breaking out. People were asking, “Did he just resign?”
Some said, “No, I think he had a nervous breakdown.”
We had three morning services then, so I returned to preach my one-sentence sermon a second time and then a third. I would like to say that lives were changed, that hundreds decided to follow Christ. The truth is, hardly anyone ever mentioned it. I received only one letter commenting on it. Finally, it began to dawn on me that my one-sentence sermon was not for the congregation. That sermon was for me: Did I really want to hear God speak, even if obedience produced one of the most humiliating experiences of my life?
My innermost spirit matured a lot that day. Hearing God speak can carry a high price tag, though usually not. I cultivate my inner spirit because I love to commune with God. I enjoy sharing intimate thoughts and feelings with him. I practice the spiritual disciplines. I try to obey my conscience and keep it strong. While I make some mistakes in discerning what God says, I enjoy getting to know God, and I want to become a spiritual man with a strong spirit.
Richard Foster, The Celebration of Discipline (New York: Harper & Row, 1978).
Arthur Wallis, God’s Chosen Fast (Fort Washington, Pa.: Christian Literature Crusade, 1977).
Madame Guyon, Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ (Goleta, Calif.: Christian Books, 1975).
Copyright © 1998 Roger Barrier
