8. God’s love for and delight in me don’t change from one phase to another.
Do you ever find that your sense of God’s approval is tied to how much progress you feel you are making on your spiritual journey?
What are ways or disciplines that help you to hear God’s delight in you?
Does the idea of taking a break from your spiritual efforts seem wrong If so, what might be the dangers of this?
What could be an advantage to resting from our spiritual practices and disciplines?
It certainly pleases God when we pay attention to our journey and strive to grow in our relationship with Him. He wants us to work to become more like Jesus and join Him in His work on earth. But there is a danger in believing that God’s love for us depends on our progress on the journey.
God’s unconditional love is just that: it does not depend on our actions. It is human nature to assume another’s love for us depends on our own actions. In the ways of the world, actions have consequences, and love is conditional. But God loves us no matter what.
Our spiritual journey can be difficult and at times and we may think we are doing poorly or even failing. We may not live up to even our own expectations, let alone what we think God expects of us. Ironically, the more we grow on our journey, the more we notice areas that need growth. This may lead us to think that God is disappointed with us. But that is not the case.
Our journey is not a task to complete or a test to pass. Our journey is an experience of doing life with God. God is pleased whenever we invite Him into our journey; His love is not conditioned on our performance. But there is an opposite danger, too. It’s possible to make our journey a source of pride by over-valuing our progress. We can become vulnerable to worshiping our efforts and our journey more than God Himself.
It may seem improper to say, but there are times we may need to take a break from our spiritual journey. Taking a break doesn’t mean turning away from God, rather it refers to taking a break from the effort we give to our journey. One of the commands God has given is to practice rest—sabbath. Resting weekly from our jobs and other work helps renew us and it breaks our tendency to make our work too important.
A sabbath from our spiritual journey can be helpful for the same reason—to give us rest, break our unhealthy attachment to our efforts and progress, and remind ourselves that God loves us even when we aren’t making progress. Practicing timely and appropriate spiritual sabbath can be very helpful on our journey, it can refocus our attention on God and His love for us—His unconditional love.