Windsor Castle in March, 2000
My life can be so full of distractions. Sometimes I start to do one thing, get sidetracked doing another, then have to tend to a third thing that’s even more pressing. Inevitably more distractions follow. By the time I get back to whatever the first thing was, I’ve forgotten it. Maybe that’s just typical life with a six-month-old, but I feel so disorganized most of the time. I want to focus on what’s really important, not be ruled by the tyranny of the urgent.
Sometimes I experience this in my spiritual life, as well. My desire is to focus on what’s most important, but it’s so easy to get distracted. My tendency is to pursue good things to the detriment of the very best.
When Jesus was asked what God’s most important command was, He replied that it was, first, to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and second, to love your neighbor as yourself. Two such seemingly simple commands, and yet obedience remains elusive. For some time I’ve been seeking to learn what it would mean to truly love God with my all. What would it look like in my life if I loved the Lord with all my heart (or passion), all my soul (or prayer), all my mind (or intellect), and all my strength (or ability)? And how would it affect the way I love others?
I’ll likely be pondering this to some degree clear up until the day I die, but recently I came across a helpful metaphor for understanding what it means to love God with everything in me. In his book SoulGuide: Following Jesus As Spiritual Director, Dr. Bruce Demarest, professor at Denver Seminary, details several historical journey patterns for Christians. One of them I had never heard of before, but learning of it has revolutionized the way I relate to God. It’s called The Carmelite Model, and it’s taken from Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle, written in 1577. According to Demarest the book,
portray[s] the spiritual journey as a deepening relationship with God through prayer. The castle represents the human soul, the gate of the castle entry into the spiritual life, and the innermost room of the castle the place of deepest communion with God. Teresa compares the pilgrim’s passage through the castle to the relationship between a lover and the beloved– progressing from spiritual friendship (rooms 1-3), to spiritual courtship (rooms 4-5), to spiritual marriage (rooms 6-7).
The first room is a metaphor for the experience of a new believer, still beholden in many ways to the world system and all its enticements. He or she has the choice of either pursuing things like wealth, fame, or power, or of following Christ further into the castle. Once the new believer has increased in faith, he or she enters the second room, where “faith remains feeble, prayers brief and lukewarm, and service self-centered.”
The third room is where the person looks outwardly like they “have it all together”– but they have yet to experience any sort of real intimacy with Christ. They may be busy reading Christian books, listening to sermons and serving others, but they aren’t pursuing a true relationship with God. Often they’re still trying to earn grace through a hidden form of legalism– keeping their daily quiet times, never missing a Sunday at church, serving because they know they should. Some even fear the loss of their salvation if they don’t do these things. The majority of Christians remain in this stage for quite some time. Many never leave it.
The fourth room is often entered only after some great trial precipitates a “dark night of the soul” and periods of deep introspection. The Christian may learn that he or she cannot earn grace, or that busyness about God is no substitute for relationship with God. He or she realizes that God loves the same no matter what, and begins to serve Him out of love, not because of a need to perform. Teresa compares this stage to the beginning of a courtship. Obedience to God remains, but its purpose is now to delight Him, not to placate Him or earn His favor (or the favor of other Christians).
The fifth room is down a hallway “not taken” by many believers. Communion with Christ results in a love so great that death is viewed only as an entry point to further joy. The sixth and seventh rooms are likened to a spiritual marriage: Love for the Savior increases until “the soul is brought into closest possible union with Christ this side of glory…. Christ has become married to all aspects of the conscious and unconscious mind, such that the Christian thinks, wills, and acts with the mind of Christ.”
Teresa of Avila writes,
What God communicates here to the soul is a secret so great and a favor so sublime… that I don’t know what to compare it to. I can only say that the Lord wishes to reveal for that moment, in a more sublime manner than any spiritual vision or taste, the glory of heaven.
The pursuit of loving God is worthy of our entire lives, and we should endeavor toward this goal with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength. It is the only way to know true joy and satisfaction. (And it is the only way to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.)
But there are so, so many distractions along the way. The Enemy thwarts our every effort, apart from the grace and will of God. Early on in our journey, things of the world like wealth, fame, and power easily tempt us away from the pursuit of God. Related obstacles like workaholism and materialism are so prevalent that even Christian culture has come to embrace them. All of these things serve only to distract from the fact that our lives are empty without God.
Later, after we progress in our faith, we may find ourselves struggling less with the temptations of the world and more with subtler stumbling blocks– such as excessive indignation, busyness over seemingly spiritual things, spiritual pride, judgmentalism, legalism, discouragement, fears about the future, guilt over past sins, or shame before others or God.
One stumbling block that may be particularly hard for some to avoid is the pursuit of good things to the detriment of the very best. For instance, when we feel a prompting to share what’s on our hearts with God, we may choose instead to do something more “productive”– like reading a Christian book, looking up information on a great hero of the faith, writing down all our prayer requests– the list could go on. All of these are great things, but none of them are the best.
So what is it that God wants from us? And what is it that we’re distracted from so easily? The answer is spiritual intimacy: pouring out our hearts to God in prayer; recounting our day to Him; sharing our hopes and dreams and greatest fears; asking for His guidance about decisions both large and small; seeking His will for our lives; inviting Him to be present as we sleep and wake and go about each day; asking Him to reveal more of Himself to ourselves and others; and telling Him how much we love Him. He already knows everything about us, but His wish is to hear it from our own mouths.
God desires most for us to know and love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And even though we may not know it, that’s what we desire most, too– to know and love, with everything in us, our Creator, Comforter, Redeemer and Friend.
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