And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. —1 Peter 5:10
Earlier this year, I spent a few days at a spiritual retreat center in Three Rivers, Michigan, called the Hermitage Community. A spiritual director was available for individual sessions. (Rather than counseling or therapy, spiritual direction is listening, asking questions, and discerning what God is doing or how Their divine Spirit is moving in a person’s life, and what that dynamic might be calling a person to do in response to that sacred realization.) I seized the opportunity.
The spiritual director’s name was David. He and I met in a corner of the chapel. We two strangers prayed together, and then David asked me a few questions, listening intently to my answers. Something that surfaced was that I have passions, pieces of my “one wild and precious life,” as the poet Mary Oliver would say, that should be addressed and nurtured. A Bible verse from that morning’s chapel service percolated in my spirit as if to say that those passions are meant to be restored, confirmed, strengthened, and established in me if I’m ever going to be whole.
David shared a revelatory moment from years back when he was invited to take a dance class and he pushed back sheepishly saying, “I’m a dancer, but I don’t dance.” Hearing his knee-jerk response to that invitation, David recognized his folly and decided to take the class. He was so glad that he did.
Reflecting on that session, I wrote, “I am a musician, but I don’t play as much as I should. I’m a songwriter, but I’ve only written three songs in the last five years. I’m a writer, but most of my creative energy is given to sermons. What else am I that is lying dormant? What passions do I have that need intentional time and space in which to be restored, confirmed, strengthened, and established?”
Looking back on that reflection six months later, I wonder about other pieces of my identity and am examining some sobering hypotheticals. What if, like David the reluctant dancer, these were my responses to life’s invitations…
I’m a spouse, but I don’t share.
I’m a parent, but I don’t parent.
I’m a friend, but I don’t communicate.
I’m a student, but I don’t study.
I’m a disciple, but I don’t follow.
I’m a Christian, but I don’t love.
In many ways, our everyday world is designed to distract us from our true selves. In a culture where consumption, competition, and looking out for one’s individual desires are normalized and even celebrated, there is little room for practicing generosity, or putting someone else’s needs before our own, or being vulnerable, or simply loving. To what extent, then are those more essential components of our identity not being nurtured within our distracted and distracting culture? What needs to be restored, confirmed, strengthened, and established in us so that we would be more loving, more like the Christ we follow, more whole?
Prayer: Holy One, you are God, and I know this by your love. I pray that you would restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish anew in me the pieces of my personhood that you dreamed into being before the distractions of this life crept in. Restore in me the truth that I am Your beloved child, so that I would practice childlike joy again. Confirm in me that I am necessary, so that I would confirm the essentialness of each person I meet. Strengthen in me the spiritual reality that I am a guest among guests in this world in which You’ve place me, so that I would instinctively practice restorative justice, hospitable kindness, and transformative mercy toward all. And establish in me what you established in the beginning of all things: my identity as good—for in knowing that I am good, I will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish goodness everywhere, all the time, by your grace. Amen.
Comments