Though I didn't
realize it at the time, the autumn of 1987 proved to be a pivotal
point in my spiritual journey. It was then that I took a road or
embarked on a voyage (however you want to put it) that I'm still
traveling to this day. I hope it has meant that I've grown closer to
Christ that I otherwise would have. It certainly changed a lot of
things.
At that point in my life I
was a few years into my career at a technical consulting firm. My
third child was less than a year old. I'd been married for just over
six years, and allowing for the expectable marital adjustments, we
were doing well. We were involved in a little evangelical community
where Ellen and I both appreciated the focus on community life and
mutual commitment.
But I,
personally, was feeling a bit stagnant in my spiritual growth. My
early Christian growth had been in the military, with all the
accompanying challenges. This had transitioned into the giddy
excitement of my early involvement in the evangelical community,
which kept me going well into early marriage on enthusiasm and
optimism. But as I buckled down to the drudgery of being a husband
and father, some of the fun was wearing thin, and I was finding that
there wasn't much underneath.
During that
period our group of evangelicals was somewhat swept up in the
spiritual fad of the moment, which happened to be “signs and
wonders”, usually manifested in dramatic healing. Since physical
healings were rare, there was a lot of focus on emotional healing,
healing of memories, and the like. This led to a lot of
introspection and amateur diagnoses of the root causes of personal
struggles. I began to wonder whether I needed to get some of that
prayer to fix whatever was wrong with me.
It was during
that time that I went to a men's conference and heard at least one
speaker talk firmly about our need to have deeper faith and closer
obedience to God's holy commands. I don't remember exactly who gave
the talk, but the real Speaker was the Holy Spirit. I remember
carpooling home with a bunch of guys, one of whom was leader of the
local prayer team who was going on about the dramatic manifestations
they had been seeing during ministry times. I remember mentally
shaking my head as he spoke – somebody might need all that, but it
wasn't me. Shortly thereafter I wrote in my prayer journal, “I
don't need healing – I need faith!” I felt clearly the Lord
calling me to deeper dependence upon Him, more listening and more
obedience on my part. I started rising very early (something that
comes more easily for me than for some), sometimes as early as
3:30am, in order to have plenty of prayer time before my early start
for work.
The Lord met me
during those quiet hours, when it was just me and my Bible and my
prayer journal, alone in the living room with nothing but a candle
for illumination. He showed me that I had been seeing myself as a
slave, not as His son, and the critical difference that made. He
helped me understand how liberating obedience was, and how important
it was to trust Him completely, regardless of external circumstances.
It wasn't so much
an immediate, dramatic makeover as it was the turning of a corner.
Within a year of that time the Lord was speaking very distinctly
about trusting Him no matter what I was called to do. Within two
years, He had called me back to my Catholic heritage and launched me
out on the spiritual challenge of self-employment. (You don't think
being self-employed is a spiritual challenge? Try it.) Ellen and I
faced the anguish of seeing the evangelical community in which we'd
invested so much begin its slow and painful deterioration. We had a
few dramatic times in our marriage, but many more years of just
trudging along, discharging our responsibilities, being faithful to
what we'd been called to. Hopefully we've both grown in faith and
helped our children (and others) to do likewise. But through it all
I could trace much of the change back to those quiet mornings in the
autumn of 1987, when the Lord called me to a deeper walk with Him,
and enabled me to follow.
Looking back
across the past quarter century, I see that what the Lord was
challenging me to was what spiritual directors call abandonment.
I've recently finished Fr. DeCaussade's classic Abandonment to
Divine Providence, and many of
the themes he explains are quite familiar. They've been the
foundation for the closer walk with the Lord that I date back to that
time.
There
have been many significant years in my life, for a wide variety of
reasons. 1957 (obviously), 1967, 1975, 1979, 1981, and others all
have their meaning. But as important as any of them for my adult
walk in Christ has been 1987, which was the year He called me to a
deeper and closer walk with Him. It's a path I'm still on, and hope
to travel even more faithfully until I reach my journey's end.
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